By Sanjay Kaul, CEO — Circles Aspire
Customer loyalty in European telecommunications is becoming harder to earn – and easier to lose.
Across five of Europe’s largest markets – the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, 53% of consumers say they are willing to switch mobile providers, with more than half of those considering a move intending to do so within the next 12 months.
For both MNOs and MVNOs, the message is clear: traditional loyalty levers alone are no longer enough.
Loyalty, segmentation and AI-driven retention are among the biggest themes in Alicante this November. Register your delegate pass →
Price Still Matters – But It’s Not the Whole Story
Price remains the most important factor when consumers choose a new mobile provider, followed by network performance, signal coverage and service reliability. Among consumers planning to leave traditional operators, 53% intend to move to a low-cost provider.
This creates a significant opportunity for MVNOs and digital challenger brands, which can often operate with more agile business models, simpler propositions and lower cost structures than traditional operators.
But price alone is unlikely to create sustainable differentiation. There will always be another provider prepared to go cheaper.
The bigger opportunity is to combine competitive pricing with a customer proposition that gives consumers additional reasons to join – and stay.
The Next Battleground Is Customer Value
As European networks mature, connectivity increasingly becomes something consumers expect rather than a differentiator they actively reward.
That changes the loyalty equation.
Differentiation can increasingly come from the experience surrounding the network: pricing transparency, relevant rewards, personalisation, digital-first service and benefits connected to consumers’ everyday lives.
This is particularly relevant for MVNOs. Without owning network infrastructure, their competitive advantage comes from how effectively they can package, personalise and deliver connectivity to specific customer segments.
Rather than attempting to serve everyone, MVNOs can build propositions around distinct communities, lifestyles or needs – from youth and digital-native consumers to travellers, families, migrant communities, fintech customers or loyalty ecosystems.
Which segments will win the next five years? Hear operators debate it live in Alicante. Explore the 2026 agenda →
One European Loyalty Strategy Won’t Work
Europe cannot be treated as a single telecommunications market.
Germany has a pronounced generational divide, with younger consumers more open to switching. Italy faces significant pressure from low-cost providers. Spain combines high fixed-mobile convergence with continued movement towards lower-cost alternatives. In the UK, rewards are emerging as an additional retention lever alongside price and network performance.
The implication is significant: operators need to move from broad loyalty programmes towards market- and segment-specific customer strategies.
For MVNOs, this fragmentation can be an advantage. They do not necessarily need massive market share to succeed. They need to identify attractive customer segments and deliver a proposition that is more relevant to those customers than a generic mass-market offer.
From Customer Data to Customer Intelligence
The next generation of telco loyalty will depend on an operator’s ability to understand customers continuously and act quickly.
AI can help identify customers at risk of leaving, determine which offers resonate with different segments, personalise engagement and measure whether loyalty investments improve retention and lifetime value.
Combined with cloud-native platforms and automation, these capabilities can also lower the barriers for MVNOs to launch, experiment and evolve propositions without the complexity traditionally associated with telecom operations.
For MNOs, the challenge is using their scale, data and customer relationships more intelligently. For MVNOs, it is using agility, focus and differentiated experiences to compete where larger operators can be slower to respond.
At Circles, our experience building and operating digital telco brands, combined with our AI-enabled SaaS capabilities, gives us a practical perspective on both sides of this transformation.
The winners in Europe’s next era of customer loyalty won’t necessarily be the biggest operators. They will be the ones that understand their customers best – and can turn that understanding into differentiated value fastest.
Read the full Circles analysis: Consumer Insights – Customer Stickiness & Loyalty in European Telecommunications
Continue the conversation at MVNO Nation Europe 2026
Loyalty, retention economics, AI-driven segmentation, and the shape of Europe’s next customer battleground — all live in Alicante, 3–5 November 2026, at Meliá Villaitana. Join Sanjay Kaul and 500+ MVNO leaders, MNOs, enablers and suppliers.
