About TalkTalk
The meteoric rise that the mobile phone and related telecommunications industry experienced during the nineties was the midwife to many companies, some of which today sit alongside some of the richest companies in the world. Thirty years ago many of us had never heard of these telecommunications giants who are household names today, such as Vodafone, O2 and the Carphone Warehouse.
In an attempt to diversify their business, The Carphone Warehouse acquired the telecommunications company Opal Telecom in November 2002. This business move gave The Carphone Warehouse access to a switching network, which in turn gave access to BT Wholesale's landline telephone systems for the very first time.
Sensing an opportunity, Charles Dunstone, co-creator of Carphone Warehouse, became CEO of TalkTalk, a new company offering cheaper landline calls than their competitor British Telecom. They went on to offer unlimited free calls between TalkTalk users from April 2004.
The company was a huge success, and soon diversified into the provision of broadband services to their landline phone customers. This was then followed by a succession of takeovers of other services by TalkTalk, including an acquisition of E2Save for £4.7m, the acquisition of Xtra in Spain for £11.6m as well as taking over One Stop Phone Shop for £15m and the double swoop of Tele2 for £11.5m and One.Tel for £169.6m.
This rapid expansion saw them introduce their controversial "free broadband plan". However, demand severely outstripped supply and TalkTalk experienced a rocky period where other allegations were thrown at them, such as the telephone slamming issue and the scandal surrounding their "data pimping" relationship with former spyware company Phorm.
Despite many teething problems and numerous complaints being leveled against their service, TalkTalk never stood still. They continued their relentless acquisition of other companies and in October 2006 acquired AOL UK for a cool £370m. As of 2008, TalkTalk was sat in third place in the pecking order of telecommunications providers in Britain, behind BT and Virgin Media, with around £347m in revenue.
To address this TalkTalk agreed to buy the customer base of rival broadband provider Tiscali for £236m. While this latest acquisition would put them into second place the deal is subject to European Union approval. By 2010 the people in control of both Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk hope to have the two companies existing as separate listed entities, in order that shareholders can see better how their own companies are faring.
All in all, it would seem that TalkTalk endured a turbulent 'teenage' phase that they seem to be coming out of. With this most recent acquisition, which would take their customer base close to the 5m mark, it would seem that TalkTalk is determined to become a big player in both British and global telecommunications, and by offering cheap broadband and phone calls they could certainly accomplish this.
