Tuenti

Tuenti Technologies, S.L.U is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), that operates with the Tuenti brand, owned by Telefónica. It is a Spain-based tech company, that focuses on providing a cloud experience through its own application and its website to their customers.

Tuenti Technologies, S.L.U.
TypePrivate, Limited
IndustryInternet
Software
Telecommunications
Founded2006 (2006)
Founder
  • Zaryn Dentzel
  • Félix Ruiz Hernández
  • Kenny Bentley
  • Adeyemi Ajao
  • Joaquín Ayuso de Pául
Headquarters
Gran Vía, 28. Madrid, Spain.
Area served
Spain
Peru
Argentina
Ecuador
Guatemala
Key people
Pablo Ledesma (chief)
21,000,000 EUR (2014)
OwnerTelefónica
Number of employees
180 (2016, approximation)

Originally, Tuenti was created in 2006 as a social networking service becoming the most popular social network among young people in Spain between 2009 and 2012, with over 15 million registered users,[1] thus referred to as the "Spanish Facebook".[2]

Currently, in Spain, Tuenti offers mobile telephone services accessible anywhere in any device by making it accessible through the cloud. In Latin America, Tuenti ships its brand through Telefónica branches in those countries, exploiting the young market by offering simple and affordable plans among other services common to mobile carriers, Tuenti offers free VoIP calls and instant messaging through its own messaging app.

Company history
Founder Zaryn Dentzel in 2008

Tuenti was founded as a Social networking service in 2006 by a group of friends in Spain. Zaryn Dentzel, Felix Ruiz Hernandez, Kenny Bentley, Adeyemi Ajao and Joaquín Ayuso de Pául were the key people who worked together to bring Tuenti to life.[3] Dentzel's first experience in Spain was on a students exchange program that took him to Cabeza del Buey (Badajoz). Bentley, the lead programmer, came to Spain after having worked in social networking in the United States.[4] In the beginning, the project was aimed to university students, but due to its success, they opened to everyone, although it was only possible to register with an invitation.[5] Years later the register was opened to everyone, in an attempt to make it available globally, with the only extra requirement of giving a phone number. Zaryn Dentzel has chronicled the story of Tuenti in a book called El futuro lo decides tú.[6]

Although the name sounds similar to the English word twenty, it actually comes from "tu [id]enti[dad]", meaning "your identity".[7] The service was originally targeted at the Spanish market, but in 2012 they made it globally available.[8] The organization has reached more than 250 employees from more than 21 countries around the world.[9]

Google Zeitgeist's 2009 listed Tuenti as the third fastest-rising global search. Google's 2008 Zeitgeist report listed Tuenti as the year's fourth fastest-rising global search term.[10] In 2011, it was estimated that more than 15% of the web traffic in Spain was on Tuenti, which at that time in Spain meant more traffic than Google and Facebook together.[11][12]

On August 4, 2010 the major telecommunications group Telefónica acquired 85% of tuenti's shares for a total of 70 million euro, becoming its largest shareholder.[13]

In that same year, tuenti started the development of a light virtual mobile network operator which worked completely under the Movistar (Telefónica) infrastructure. Later, in December, the service, still in a developing state, is released to the users of the social network under the brand "Tu".

On the 11th of July 2012, tuenti announced a big renovation of its social network platform. It featured a new focus on mobile devices, availability in 12 new languages, and was called Tuenti Social Messenger, though, its attempt to become a global social network by officially supporting registers out of Spain was a failure. After a massive loss of active users, a big change on the company's drift occurred and its virtual mobile operator became the main focus.

On the 6th of November 2013, Telefónica owned 100% of the company after an agreement with the remaining shareholders.[14]

Tuenti launched its mobile operator brand in Mexico, Peru and Argentina in 2014.[15] After this move, the brand was present in four countries, offering competitive data bundles and started developing a cloud-based strategy. Tuenti has completely transformed its business from a social network to a mobile telecommunications provider.

During 2014, the company reported that their mobile operator represented 98% of the income.[16] The company attained a global turnover of 21 million euro, 25% more than the previous year.[17][18] Although it was still not positive, this year's financial report was the best since the launching of their mobile business and the acquisition by Telefónica.

In 2015, Sebastian Muriel is appointed as the new CEO of the company. He was already part of the mobile operator team for a long time before.[19] During this year and 2016, Tuenti went through a rebranding and the company reaffirmed its commitment with the mobile market by completely renewing their website, which got rid of all the remaining social elements and functions. This year, Telefónica also started to make important changes in the management team: Sebastian Muriel, along with the social network team became part of Telefónica's I+D team, a division of the company in charge for innovation and new products, while Pablo Ledesma became the new director.[20]

Mobile operator (in Spain)
Tuenti
Developer(s)Tuenti Technologies
Operating systemiOS, Android
TypeVoIP, Instant Messaging
LicenseProprietary
Websitetuenti.com

Pre-launch phase

Tuenti launched Tu as a developing project in 2010 supported by Telefónica, which was the largest shareholder back then, aiming to have influence in the young market that the social network had at that time.

Signing up for Tu was free of charge during the initial launching, but it had certain limitations: it was only accessible by invitation (an invitation from a social network user who already had signed up was a requirement, the company sent invitations to random users with this purpose), once an invitation was received users could only sign up for a new number, number portability from another provider was not possible, also, the service was only available on prepaid. The provisioned SIM card was posted nationwide free of charge.

During the pre-launch phase offered plans changed a couple times. First plans launched consisted in weekly, 14 days long or monthly plans which were focused in calls and SMS, as well as free access to the social network after recharging and free TuentiSMS usage.[21] Almost a year later postpaid plans were first launched. Offered plans changed multiple times during this phase and just before the final launch their main focus became bigger data plans.

Final launching

On 15 February 2012 the company left behind the pre-launch phase of the project and launched Tuenti Móvil for social network users, dropping the name Tu used for the pre-release phase. This official launch came accompanied by brand new plans including competitive data bundles, invitation system was no longer required to access the service and a new advertising campaign within the social network to promote the service. Just a month later new postpaid plans were launched.[22]

One year later, Tuenti announced a better integration between Tuenti Móvil and the social network thanks to its mobile application which included the ability to manage various of the MVNO services and the release of new plans that came with free (unmetered) usage of the social network, making chatting, sharing and doing VoIP calls within the platform totally free of charge or data quota consumption. This new feature was named "ZEROLÍMITES".[23] This proposal aimed to make the whole brand more attractive for current and potential customers and social network users. By that time, the social networking platform experienced an important decrease on active users that presumably migrated to other brand new social platforms.

2014 was an intensive year for the company: this year the company started in Spain the deployment of their own mobile core-network, therefore gaining on independence and enabling them to develop brand new functionalities. At the same time, they also gained presence as a mobile operator on ITU.[24] "VozDigital" was also launched on July,[25] it is a serviced that takes advantage of the current application VoIP functionalities to give customers the possibility to make phone calls using their current phone number and a plan that includes VozDigital minutes. Later, it also became possible to receive calls and make international calls without extra cost.

Mobile operator (overseas)

Supported by Telefónica and taking benefit of new telecommunications regulations, the brand Tuenti was launched in some Latin-American countries, starting by Mexico.[26] The brand was promoted as a whole-new mobile operator to hit the market, although it works completely based on the Movistar (Telefónica) infrastructure. From the beginning, the offer aimed to a young market: by releasing simple plans (called "Combos") at competitive rates. Both, strategy and offers are slightly different in Latin-American countries to Spain due to technical limits, among other reasons.

Even though it might differ at strategy and operational level from Spain, overseas customers can still take advantage of the mobile application to manage their mobile accounts. From this approach, the philosophy remains the same: offering control for all your services, instant messages and calls for users of the app, VozDigital calls (availability in some countries, call destinations and some functionalities might vary).

Mexico

June 26, 2014 was the key date for the first official announcement of the international launch: The brand Tuenti started its operations in Mexico. There was a celebration at Campus Party Mexico, giving away for free 2,500 SIM cards for users to provide feedback.[27]

Two years after the brand release, in July 2016 the brand quietly ceases its activity.[28] Customers are migrated automatically to Movistar and Tuenti's social media profiles for Mexico are removed. Sebastian Muriel, CEO of Tuenti, claimed in an interview that the results of the brand in Mexico were not as good as expected due to the monopolistic situation of telephony market.[29]

Argentina

Tuenti replaced the brand "Quam", also owned by Telefónica on November 18, 2014. Plus, from that moment, users would be able to access Tuenti's mobile application to watch and manage their services.

Peru

On October, 2014, Peru became the third country in which the brand was released. Peru was also the first country apart from Spain in which VozDigital was launched, enabling customers to make calls (but not to receive them) to any national fixed line or mobile destination through almost any device and just an internet connection.

Ecuador

The brand was launched on May 29, 2015, with an advertising campaign named "Libérate" (free yourself).

Guatemala

Brand was launched on June 22, 2017, with a massive media campaign called "Sin Pajas" and were using #SinPajas as principal hashtag campaign.

Social network

Tuenti was the most popular social network of Spain[30] and it featured all the tools common to social-networking sites. It allowed users to set up a profile, upload photos and videos, connect and communicate with friends. Many other utilities, such as a chat application, the ability to create events and tagging locations and places were also offered in the beginning. Unlike similar social networking sites which feature banner advertisements, Tuenti opted out of these traditional forms of obstructive and invasive advertising, in order to respect the privacy of the user.[31][32][33]

Social network cease

After users leaving the social platform, the removal of some essential functions of the social network and have made a strategy refocus in a different industry, keeping the social platform alive made no sense.

On February 1, 2016 confidential information was leaked[34] from old employees of the company who claimed that social network closure was imminent. Just a month later, the company launched an update to their mobile application and website that removed all the remaining social networking features, except the chat platform. It also enabled users to download their data for certain period of time, inviting users to download and try the new features such as VozDigital, using their own current phone number to make free calls.

See also

References
  1. A huge thank you to our 10 million active users and 15 million registered users!
  2. Jiménez Cano, Rosa (2007-12-10). "Tuenti, ¿el Facebook español?". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-04-29.
  3. "Un camino por recorrer, un nuevo socio". 2010-08-04.
  4. Sabate, Jordi (2008-04-10). "Zaryn Dentzel, director ejecutivo de Tuenti, la mayor red social online en castellano". Consumer Eroski (in Spanish).
  5. Elola, Joseba (2008-12-14). "O estás en Tuenti o perdiste el tren". El País (in Spanish).
  6. "El futuro lo decides tú (You Decide the Future)".
  7. "Tengo una pregunta para Tuenti" (in Spanish). 2008-11-27. Archived from the original on April 27, 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  8. "Tuenti in your language". 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2013-07-08.
  9. CincoDias, Ediciones (2011-05-12). "Tuenti eleva su plantilla más de un 36% desde enero". Cinco Días (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-04-29.
  10. Ahmed, Murad. "Palin beats Obama in Google's 'zeitgeist' rankings". The Times. 2008-12-09.
  11. http://zenware.net/blog/?p=183
  12. http://www.trecebits.com/2011/10/05/el-15-del-trafico-web-en-espana-pasa-por-tuenti/
  13. "Telefónica compra el 85% de la red social Tuenti por 70 millones de euros".
  14. "Telefónica se hace con el 100% de Tuenti".
  15. Alonso, Santiago Millán. "Tuenti avanza en su expansión y lanza en Argentina su servicio móvil". Cinco Días. Retrieved 2016-04-29.
  16. "Pioneros en la telefonía del futuro, seguimos creciendo y mejorando resultados | Tuenti Corporate". corporate.tuenti.com. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  17. País, Ediciones El (2014-01-30). "Tuenti perdió 23 millones en sus dos primeros años como filial de Telefónica". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  18. Cid, Mikel (2015-04-13). "Tuenti, aunque en pérdidas, ya no es un lastre para Movistar, ya tienen 240.000 clientes". www.xatakamovil.com. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  19. "Sebastián Muriel, nombrado nuevo CEO de Tuenti". abc (in Spanish). 2015-01-14. Retrieved 2016-10-16.
  20. País, Ediciones El (2016-10-11). "Telefónica prepara el relevo de la cúpula directiva de Tuenti". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-10-16.
  21. plokiko (2011-03-30). "Tuenti ofrecerá llamadas y mensajes totalmente gratis entre clientes". www.xatakamovil.com. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
  22. "El contrato más animal ;P | Tuenti Corporate". corporate.tuenti.com. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
  23. "Llama, chatea y comparte sin límites con Tuenti y Tuenti Móvil | Tuenti Corporate". corporate.tuenti.com. Retrieved 2016-05-14.
  24. "ITU Operational Bulletin, No. 1048" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-05-14.
  25. "We present VOZDIGITAL, our new communication concept that integrates telco and app services | Tuenti Corporate". corporate.tuenti.com. Retrieved 2016-05-14.
  26. Dentzel, Zaryn (1 December 2015). "New challenges for 2015. Let's go for it!". Tuenti. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  27. "Prueban chips de Tuenti en Campus Party". AM (in Spanish). Compañía Periodística Meridiano S.A de C.V. 26 June 2014. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  28. Cahun, Antonio (6 July 2016). "Tuenti se va de México, poco a poco elimina su presencia del país". Xataka (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 July 2016.
  29. "El CEO de Tuenti bromea: "En México Carlos Slim mata a mis clientes si compran la SIM"". Movilonia Networks España, SL (in Spanish). 25 June 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
  30. Tesón, Nuria (10 April 2008). "Una red social española compite con Facebook entre los estudiantes". El País (in Spanish). Prisa. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
  31. Iliffe, Paul (14 November 2011). "Tuenti: la red social más privada, cada vez más móvil". Tuenti (in Spanish). Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  32. Muriel, Sebas (18 November 2014). "Argentina, nuestra tercera operación en Latinoamérica". Tuenti (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  33. Dentel, Zaryn (11 July 2012). "Presentamos el Tuenti del futuro". Tuenti (in Spanish). Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  34. Otto, Carlos (1 February 2016). "Tuenti cerrará su red social: sus 20 millones de usuarios no son rentables". El Confidencial (in Spanish). Titania Compañía Editorial, S.L. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
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