BERLIN (02/10/2000) - Deutsche Telekom AG's online provider and mobile phone subsidiaries today said they will form a new company that will sell Internet-based services over mobile devices throughout Europe.
Mobile carrier T-Mobil International AG will own 60 percent of the new company, and ISP T-Online International AG will own the remaining 40 percent, executives said here at a press conference today.
The as yet unnamed company will create a European Internet portal that will offer consumers products and services -- such as banking, shopping, entertainment and news -- that change based on where the customer is located, according to Kai-Uwe Ricke, chairman of T-Mobil.
"You can only open this market when you approach it from both sides," said Ricke, referring to combining the strengths of the mobile carrier and Deutsche Telekom's Internet service provider.
Initially, the services will be sold only to customers of Deutsche Telekom's mobile subsidiaries, Ricke said. Besides T-Mobil, that includes customers of the U.K. network One 2 One, which Deutsche Telekom acquired late last year, as well as the Austrian network max.mobil, of which it owns 91 percent.
Later, T-Mobil and T-Online plan to offer the portal to users of other networks and service providers in Europe, Ricke said.
Within T-Mobil's own network, GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) technology, which will send data in packets and increase transmission speeds, will increase the attractiveness of these mobile services, Ricke said. T-Mobil expects to have its networks equipped for GPRS by the end of the year.
Details of the new venture between the two Deutsche Telekom subsidiaries were sketchy, however. Pressed to say where and when the services would be available, Ricke said nothing concrete would be launched before late in the third quarter of the year.
Neither would he or T-online managing board member Ralf Eck elaborate on whether the services provided will, from the start, be offered in languages other than German.
T-Online has access to content through agreements with 400 partners, including the media company Verlagsgruppe Milchstrasse, the television news station NTV, German travel news service L'TUR and German finance publisher DM, Eck said.
The majority of this content is German language, however.
Indeed, T-Online' s efforts to enter markets outside of Germany, which it announced with a fanfare a year ago, have not proceeded at a rapid pace. [See "Germany's T-Online Goes International," Jan.27, 1999.] Until now, only a T-Online portal in Austria has been launched. At the time of the announcement, T-Online head Wolfgang Keuntje said Deutsche Telekom would have to make international acquisitions to carry out the strategy, but that has not yet happened.
Asked about T-Online's international efforts, Eck today said those initiatives will get under way in Central Europe over the course of this year. He declined to give further details, citing a quiet period associated with the ISP's upcoming initial public offering (IPO) in April.
T-Mobil has some 9.1 million subscribers, making it one of the top two mobile carriers in Germany, with Mannesmann Mobilfunk GmbH. T-Online has 4.2 million customers, and is the largest ISP in Germany.
T-Mobil, in Bonn, can be reached at http://www.t-mobil.de/. T-Online, also in Bonn, can be reached at http://www.t-online.de/.