It was The Spanish Facebook but now it has been sent to O2
Spanish mobile operator Telefónica is to pull the plug on its technology brand Tuenti in Spain next month. The Spanish daily El Economista has reported that ‘Movistar’ (aka Telefónica) has struggled to compete with larger rivals and attract new customers. Telefónica told its workers’ union it intended to close the division, although the impact on staff will be limited as they will they will likely be transferred to its O2 brand. Tuenti’s services, including VozDigital calling and SMS will cease on 29 May and customers will migrate to O2.
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Telefonica bought Tuenti in 2010 for around €70 million as it sought to jump on a social media boom and develop a service targeted at a younger audience. It was popular in its early years, registering more than 15 million users up to 2012 and became known as the Spanish Facebook. It then evolved into a VoIP and messaging platform.
Tuenti was quality
Sources say Telefónica recently realised that Tuenti could no longer offer a different service which adds value to customers when there are applications like WhatsApp that offer similar services without any financial outlay (although there is a cost of losing any privacy). Telefónica said it plans to shut down Tuenti to commit all of its resources to other services that it considers more valuable to customers, said the El Economista report.