Nikolaos TSOLAS, CEO Cosmote Romania, introduced for the first time in Romania the business concept behind the i-mode service, at the Communications Day, on May 10, 2007.
"This is the second time I am speaking at this conference. Last year was my first time, basically representing a small company. We were 200.000 subscribers. This year we are talking about over 2 million.
Last year we were 18 percent coverage. This year we are talking about over 90 percent coverage and growing by the day.
Last year I presented you a little bit of what we had done in the six months from December 2005 and the small revolution we introduced in March 2006.
And also I gave you a promise what things would come in the future.
Well, today I bring to you that Cosmote is bringing the i-mode service to Romania. Next week we will start commercial. Actually we have a big event and you are all invited on May 17 in a big party with number 1 DJ in the world, Tiesto. I don"t know him, but my daughter knows him very well and we will have a good time all of us.
But let me just present you very fast what is i-mode.
i-mode is basically the true mobile Internet technology that worked to date. Developed by an entity NTT DoCOMo, an operator having customer in mind, it has been very successful in Japan and also very successful everywhere it has been introduced, including Greece and Bulgaria.
It's unique system, besides technology and the fact that it is written in the Internet language it is very easy to develop applications.
It also has a very "win" business model, where everybody involved in this chain of the service - being a developer, an operator, a content provider and a customer - everybody is winning, helped by the i-mode Alliance. The operator partners with reputable local and international content providers.
Implementation is very easy, it is the language of Internet, hypertext markup, that is written in the Internet so new content and new applications are very fast and very easy to develop.
The content providers are international and reputable local content providers and all of them are in the i-mode who will start commercial operation.
(+ aici slide-ul in care se vad siglele CNN, Eurosport, Euronews, Gameloft, Ziarul Financiar)
There are more than 100.000 i-mode sites available worlwide and content developed is specific to the country that i-mode is commercially available.
Content is basically entertainment, information, data bases and online shopping and banking transactions and they will be available as we start commercial operations next week with two Romanian banks.
The i-mode alliance and this unique set of agreements and partnerships with content providers is made available through the i-mode alliance
which was started in Japan by NTT DoCoMo. There are operators in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania.
There are already 55 million subscribers already in about 16 different countries.
Cosmote Group is an exclusive i-mode provider in the South-East part of Europe, having already over 12 million subscribers, and it is operating and it is bringing i-mode to Romania, small but fast growing.
We started i-mode in June 2004 in Grece. In June 2005 we moved to i-mode over 3G. Bulgaria started i-mode in September 2005. And in May 2006, within a record implementation time, we bring i-mode to Romania.
i-mode is very successful in Grece and in Bulgaria and we are confident that it will be successful in Romania as well.
There are 12 categories of information that you can access, whether it is news, sports, entertainment, finance.
On top of that you can send MMS and SMS, of course.
But the powerfull tool of i-mode is also its full integrated e-mail service that includes in there. You can send to multi-user, you can use attachments - every e-mail service that we have today.
I would like, on behalf of Cosmote, to welcome Romania in the big i-mode Alliance in the world. Thank you."
More videos from Communications Day 2007 conference now online on YouTube
