Groupon and Deutsche Telekom have today announced a partnership that will see the daily deals service distributed as standard with the telephony giant’s smartphones across Europe.
This is the first time that Groupon has partnered with a mobile operator, and today’s announcement notes that “Deutsche Telekom mobile customers will enjoy Groupon’s mobile services on their devices without the need for a separate download providing easy access to the best local deals in their area.”
The first handsets featuring Groupon services are scheduled to be available during the first half of 2012.
Groupon launched on the NASDAQ on 4 November 2011, and its stock price has plummeted since then, amid concerns over the amount it spends to acquire customers.
Groupon needs to show its shareholders that it can grow cost-effectively, and mutually-beneficial deals with wide reaching companies could be a good way of doing this. Deutsche Telekom, which owns the T-Mobile brand, boasted 128 million mobile customers, 35 million fixed-network lines and around 17 million broadband lines as of September 2011, so it’s clearly a useful audience for Groupon to tap into.
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