Nine operators have announced the formation of a new Partnering Operator Alliance that will enable partner businesses to bring products and services to customers around the world more efficiently and quickly.

BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Millicom, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, MTS, Rogers, TeliaSonera and TIM are the operators behind the alliance, and together represent a customer base of around 1bn subscribers in more than 80 countries.

“Partnering becomes more and more important. We as operators can provide partners with the best networks and easy distribution to customers,” said Christian von Reventlow, chief product & innovation officer at Deutsche Telekom. “And the partners enable us to provide our customers with the best and most innovative products and services. This is a perfect win-win situation for all.”

The Alliance will focus on exchanging best practices on how to bring partner propositions to the market and joint efforts in partner scouting, as well as exchanging knowledge about upcoming trends and services amongst the group. The Alliance has established relationships with 30 partners already, including AirBnB, Spotify, Mojio, Celltick and Idoomoo.

“Orange is already committed to enabling digital startups to accelerate their growth through its in-house initiatives and its partnerships with operators or large companies,” said Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, senior executive for innovation, marketing and technologies at Orange. “We strongly believe that this alliance will contribute and enhance our collective ability to scale up innovators.”