Europe : UMTS technology has the potential to double the value of companies in the mobile sector in five years."

This is the view of Vincenzo Novari, chief executive of 3 Italy, the subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Group, which was the first to commercially launch UMTS services in Europe.

In a keynote speech, Novari said: "In macro terms, the challenge is to increase ARPU (average revenue per user) from 30 to 40 euros by changing the mix of voice and value-added services (VAS) so that 20% of revenues come from high speed data services."

"The critical factor in order to compete in 3G is not only constituted by content, but by the manner in which the content is made available," Novari said. "On the basis of our experience, customers do not limit themselves to watching content, but want to be able to save and distribute it among the people who constitute their network of relationships."

Novari said the next challenge for mobile operators will be to shift their focus from so-called "killer applications" to "billing applications".

"Operators need to convert the behaviours of 'on-the-move' customers into revenues by charging appropriate fees for information and 'real-time' services," he explained.

"There is a significant demand for the new services made available by 3G," Novari added. "This has been proven not only by the more 300,000 customers acquired by 3 Italia in 150 days, but also by the levels of data use: "75% of our customers make at least one video call a week, 25% of the messages sent are video messages, and in the past month football fans downloaded 200,000 video goals. Our penetration rate for football meanwhile has increased by 50%."

3 - Is the commercial brand of H3G, the mobile video company in the Italian market. After having won the UMTS license in Italy in November 2000, with the offer of 3.25 billion euros, 3 launched its service at the beginning of March 2003, aiming for leadership of the third generation mobile market. Among its shareholders are prominent leaders in Italy and the world, from the sectors of telecommunications, the Internet and new media, publishing and finance. Hutchison Whampoa Limited is the primary shareholder with 88,67% of the authorized capital. The other shareholders include CIR, S. Paolo Imi, BMI, RCS Mediagroup, Gemina and Tiscali.