Subsidiary | |
Industry | Mobile network operator |
Founded | March 2008 |
Headquarters | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
Products | Feature phones, smartphones (Android, iOS) |
Services | HSPA (including HSPA+), LTE, mobile broadband, SMS, telephony |
Parent | Telus |
Website | www |
Koodo Mobile is a Canadian mobile flanker brand started by Telus in 2008 and mostly oriented toward younger customers. Koodo differs from its parent Telus by not requiring a fixed term contract. Koodo currently provides postpaid and prepaid services. Being a subsidiary of Telus, Koodo has been able to offer extensive coverage and a strong presence in mobile retailers. This allowed Koodo to gain a presence nationwide.
The brand name is a variation of the Ancient Greek word "" (the ascendant to the English word ""), meaning "praise, renown, glory" and more recently "acclaim for something well done".
Telus Mobility's competitor, Bell Mobility, had an MVNO partnership with Virgin Group to create Virgin Mobile Canada. This brand was in operation since 2005, and it mainly targeted high school, college and university students. In response, Telus Mobility had a similar but much shorter partnership with the American Amp'd Mobile in 2007 to create a Canadian MVNO. It was ended because the Amp'd Mobile operations in the United States suffered from poor customer service and bankruptcy. This meant that unlike Bell, Telus no longer had a mobile brand targeting students.
Nearly a year after the launch day of Amp'd Mobile in Canada, Telus launched Koodo Mobile on March 17, 2008 in Canada. This mobile brand provided services at a lower cost than most other companies.
Many customers at Koodo requested the addition of full QWERTY keyboard devices to facilitate text input for SMS and Internet-based tasks such as email and social networking services. On May 25, 2010, Koodo launched their first smartphone, the BlackBerry Curve 8530. The following month, Koodo released the Nokia 3710 as their first HSPA+ device on June 28, 2010. After this date, the company gradually started to discontinue sales of CDMA devices.