The mobile unit of Brazil's third largest fixed line operator Brasil Telecom expects 10% of revenues in 2008 to come from value-added services compared to 6-7% this year, BrT manager for value-added services Rafael Magdalena told BNamericas.
The mobile unit BrT GSM, which generated revenues of 512mn reais (US$254mn) in the second quarter compared to 289mn reais in 2Q06, sees data services as vital to securing future revenues.
BrT GSM expects to generate increased sales from services such as SMS, MMS, WAP, ringtones and interactive services such as quizzes, Magdalena said.
BrT GSM generates the bulk of its revenues from value-added services in SMS and WAP at the moment, but this may change in 2008 with more advanced handsets coming onto the market.
For instance, BrT GSM's mid-range handsets now cost around 400 reais, whereas the mid-range handsets should cost about 200-300 reais in 2008, allowing more customers to use inbuilt MP3s, cameras and especially WAP functions on their phones, according to Magdalena.
BrT GSM this month slashed its prices for sending multimedia messages by 50% to 0.25 reais each.
With the two-month promotion, BrT GSM hopes to double the number of MMS messages to 2mn a day by the end of September from fewer than 1mn messages a day at the moment, the executive said.
The aim is to enable BrT GSM's subscribers to get to know the MMS product, Magdalena said.
"We want them to try and buy," he said.
The company started promotions for MMS earlier this month in order to boost usage by Christmas and the New Year, when many customers will have new phones and the potential volume of such messages is high.
The operator also has plans to launch a new ring-back tone later this year, which allows the receiver to hear the sender's personalized ringtone, Magdalena said.
Posted to the site on 20th August 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/25531.php