3 Italy reach 1 million customers mark

July 15, 2004

3 Italia said on Thursday that it had more than 1 million subscribers to its 3G mobile phone service. The company reached the mark one and a quarter year after the launch of the service in March 2003. New handsets helped the company double it customer base in the last four months.

Hutchison Whampoa, which owns 3 Italia, was earlier in the week reported to be adding 20,000 subscribers a day to its global 3G business. In late May, the company reported it had signed up 1.73 million users worldwide, up 70% in two months.

"The test of the whole thing is whether I can get customers. And I can," Managing Director Canning Fok said in the Business Week report.

Hutchison, which is spending US$22 billion on the development of 3G networks, had a sluggish start when it launched its service. It had hoped to have 1 million subscribers in Italy by the end of 2003, but was a long way off the target. But now the company seems to be turning things around and Fok insisted that the difficult period is over.

Hutchison's 3G businesses is expected to face tough competition as a number of operators are beginning to rollout their 3G services in Europe. Unlike Hutchison, the key operators in Europe have existing customers and would not be aggressively promoting 3G as they will also need to protect losing their existing customers.