By announcing the launch of a mobile offer in Europe, Revolut does not open a simple additional service. It addresses a strategic flaw that historical operators – Orange, SFR, Free – are struggling to fill for years: the interface. This foray into the telecom sector is not a whim, it is a demonstration of force of the Super App, and here is what it reveals:
The telecom sector is technologically advanced but commercially frozen
4G, 5G, fiber … French operators have invested massively in infrastructure. However, the customer promise does not follow. Unreadable pricing, hidden costs, laborious termination procedures, poorly designed interfaces: technical innovation has not been translated into usage innovation. Revolut, by offering a mobile package directly integrated into its banking Superapp, precisely targets this lag.
Customer relationship becomes the real differentiation zone
Revolut does not bring a new antenna but it brings experience. The user can activate their package, manage their consumption, terminate or add data from the same application where he follows his bank accounts or invests in the stock market. The telecom product is invisible, only the interface counts. This is a direct lesson for historical operators, still dependent on customer paths in silos, partitioned applications, inherited models.
MVNOs are no longer simple low -cost distributors
Revolut will operate like MVNO, that is to say without clean infrastructure, based on existing networks. This model, long relegated to low-cost, now becomes a strategic lever. In 2024, MVNOs captured more than 1.6 million new customers in the United Kingdom, when the major operators lost subscribers. The emergence of strong, product -oriented marks, transforms MVNOs into frontal competitors on use, not only on the price.
Service aggregation becomes more powerful than vertical integration
Orange Diversifies, SFR Restructure, free optimized. But all of them remain trapped in an integrated operator logic. Revolut, she assembles bricks: bank, insurance, telecom, crypto, investment. The user remains in a single interface. This ability to aggregate without having redefined the value chain. Infrastructure control becomes secondary in the face of attention control.
The perceived value moves from technology to simplicity
The strategic error of historic operators is to have confused technical complexity and customer value. The consumer no longer buys a network, he buys ease. The success of the ESIM of Revolut for travel, which has become its most used non -banking service, is proof. Instant commissioning, without physical card, without shop, is enough to convert uses.
Revolut entry into telecoms acts as a revealer.
It does not aim for market domination, but the illustration of a principle: in mature sectors, the next wave of disruption does not come from technical progress, but from a recovery from the product from the user’s point of view.
Revolut reminds operators a forgotten truth: we do not change supplier for one more megabit, but for three clicks less.
