Europe : 3 CEO Berthold Thoma ( inset ) today drew balance after nearly two years of mobile multi media in Austria. His resumee: "Content becomes more important and the revenue out of multi media and data services is rising heavily. We are outriders and follow an international trend. But mobile multi media does not necessarily mean the same. UMTS is just the technical service - the transport so to speak - the consumers are interested in the content and go for quality instead of quantity."

The typical Austrian mobile multi media user is according to Thoma, referring to the experience with 200,000 3Customers, 18 to 38 years, within the urban region, curious, interested in technology and usually experienced a high education. "The people know what they want: fun and entertainment, always the latest on information, the most modern handsets comprising the best features," says Thoma.

Because of this 3 has restructured its offer accordingly - only 3 gives the customer diversity, timeliness and quality of the offer. That's mobile multi media. It means: watching TV in real time, watching sport events live and in full length, being up to date with ORF.on-news, having the biggest music platform of Austria, high class content from suppliers such as Playboy, Universal, MTV, BMG or Sport1.

3 knows what the Austrians want

The favourites are: Music, games and erotic. This is proved by the figures: more than 1m music downloads in 2004 alone, 1,000 hours of live-TV every 4 weeks and 50,000 downloads per game and month! Each top ten song is downloaded more than 2,500 times per week. Already 20% of the ARPU comes from non voice revenue - the ARPU being at an average of 60 EUR. The content revenue is already higher than the SMS and MMS share.

On a daily basis the services evaluation of the best loved services is being done and therefore quick adapting to the customer needs is possible. As of now we also offer a flat fee for content in addition to the pay as you go method. This means by buying a subscription for only 5 EUR per month the consumer gets a content channel of his choice (News, MTV, weather, sport, cinema) for unlimited use. Other news are the re-launch of Playboy, 3News with ORF.on or mobile gaming and betting in a cooperation with the Austrian lotteries.

The Easter-Deal - 3 x 1.000!

With the start of today there is also a unique promotion going on: the Easter offer of 3 comprises 1000 voice minutes within all Austrian networks, 1000 minutes live TV and 1000 video clips - absolutely free.

"New deals are in pipe: cinema on the 3VideoMobile, a widening of the mobile-TV offer and brand new handsets. Shortly we launch the Motorola V975, the Nokia 6680, the LG 8180 and the NEC 338. We are aiming to launch a new handset every three weeks instead of the proclaimed six weeks!" announces Berthold Thoma. "Global alliances and our mother, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, make high class co operations possible and give us the possibility to offer the widest mobile multi media portfolio on the local market. It will be the global players who are going to determine the high end content market and the product innovations," finalizes Thoma.