Sunday aims for 3G service in Hong Kong in Q4

April 1, 2004

Sunday Communications expects to launch 3G services in Hong Kong in the fourth quarter. During the company's 2003 earnings announcement, group managing director Bruce Hicks said, "Preparation will continue for the launch of 3G services in the fourth quarter of 2004, although its partnership with Huawei offers the flexibility to reschedule the launch date if market acceptance is different from that anticipated."

"We are fully funded for our continuing operations and 3G roll-out. We have what has been the most consistent strategy in this marketplace to address the evolution of the industry…We are backed by some of the best technology in the world. I look forward to building on our success in 2004 as we prepare for our 3G launch," he said.

The company reported HK$27 million net profit for the year ending 31st December 2003 compared to a net loss of HK$117 million in 2002. Mobile subscribers increased by 9% to 660,000.

"We are profitable, achieving the target we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year," Hicks said.

Sunday's strategy is focused on market segmentation and launching innovative services. It has pursued this strategy in the belief that it represents the only way to extract more revenue from the technology and consumers in the longer term. This strategy is now coinciding with a noticeable shift in consumer attitudes as users begin increasingly to value innovation and quality. 3G will accelerate these trends.

Market segmentation provides tailor-made services to meet customers' specific lifestyle needs. During 2003, the Group reorganised its operations according to four customer segments -- youth, ethnic, corporate, and the mass market. Sunday's data and market segmentation initiatives are beginning to contribute, as they will do much more forcefully in future, to overall customer acquisition and retention. Data services revenues grew by 55% in 2003.

The segmentation services already introduced by Sunday are an important precursor to its 3G services, since 3G technology will move the industry and consumers even further away from the commoditised mass market of mobile voice communications towards ever more tailored multimedia mobile services.

In December, Huawei Technologies and Sunday formed a partnership under which Huawei is to supply equipment and finance Sunday's rollout of 3G wireless services.