British Telecom and Hang Seng-listed SmarTone, one of Hong Kong's leading communications services providers, announced on Wednesday that they are to introduce a mobile Internet portal in Hong Kong and establish a joint venture company to provide services to mobile operators in mainland China.
BT has long been planning to offer international mobile Internet services based on BT Cellnet's successful Genie service in the UK. SmarTone and BT will together be in a strong position to develop a mass-market mobile portal. The Hong Kong-based joint venture, which will become operational later this year, will work on the principle of forming strategic relationships with mainland mobile operators and content providers in order to create a mobile portal that is customised to local needs.
China is one of the largest and fastest growing mobile markets with around 63 million users expected by the end of this year.
The two communications heavyweights are in no doubt that mobile portals are destined to dominate access to the Internet. Globally, BT estimates the number of mobile subscribers to rocket 200 per cent in the next five years to more than a billion.
Ian Stone, CEO of SmarTone said 'With SmarTone's mobile portal, customers will have ready access to information, anywhere and anytime, through their own personalised interface. The global platform and applications available through our new service will deliver global, local and regional content tailored to customer needs and we expect the uptake to be rapid.'
Services to be offered through the mobile portal will include realtime news and entertainment and interactive functions such as share dealing, bill payment and banking transactions.
.
Network Tweets
Network BlogsContent
provided by
|
Archive | Resources | Partners | Site Map | Links | Newsletter Archive | Contact | RSS Feeds | About | Syndication | Advertising & Marketing | Recruitment | Terms & Conditions | Privacy
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Tax-News.com
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Tax-News.com has taken reasonable care in sourcing and presenting the information contained on this site, but accepts no responsibility for any financial or other loss or damage that may result from its use. In particular, users of the site are advised to take appropriate professional advice before committing themselves to involvement in offshore jurisdictions, offshore trusts or offshore investments.
Write a comment