What are the usual OPEX and CAPEX costs for a MVNO, as a % of their revenues?

This is depending on whether this is a greenfield or existing MVNO. Secondly you need to know whether the MVNO will purchase the Core Network or will opt in for a hosted model. This will have significant impact on the CAPEX/OPEX split.  I have launched multiple MVNO types and could be of assistance in your analysis.

Hi Ignacio.
MVNO is largerly Opex driven.  You need to be very careful of the:
1. Data Cost, as today’s Millenium is largely driven by Smartphones and digital world around him, sometimes the costestimates on usage completley unsettle your financial model.
2. In case you opt as marketing strategy to promote voice on very low rpm or even free at times, it will hit you out of the blue.
3. I don’t know how are you placed on Interconnect cost on voice & sms, that another cost you need to keep control off, specially when you have a very low rpm game in the market as other operators and trying to monetize their Data networks.
4. Anothe cost that could surprise you is the OTT / Gaming partners.  Their payouts and revenue shares need to looked into and accounted for to support DATA strategy.
5. Marketing and Manpower cost is managable and internal.
I hope this makes some sense to you.

Ignacio,

First you have to know that minimum 50%-60%  turnover is to pay access to the host operator. This opex is mainly driven by customer data use, around 80% of total.

Sucriber acquisition cost is around 30€/customer or roughly 15% turnover if you have phisical PoS to pay commisions. Depending on the size of the MVNO, it is bettter an agreement with a MVNE provider instead of investing in a Core Network. For instance 100-150K€/year + 0.3-0.5€/customer and month.

Finally, be careful with payroll and premises.

Regards

Hi Ignacio;

Contrary to Telecom infrastructure service providers, Capex/Rev indicator is irrelevant for an MVNO since the latter is largely Opex driven as elaborated in previous answers and no infra capacities are in play.
In fact, MVNO is a low product margin with EBITDA ratio ranging on average from 10 to 15 % .
Even though Opex /Rev indicator is not commonly used , I think it is better to focus in the MVNO case analysis on EBITDA margin since OPEX directly impacts EBITDA.

JN Prince

the 10-15% figure pointed out is referred to EBITDA margin.