Hutchison will not have a big discount
September 3, 2002
In a recent conference call with a U.S. bank, Hutchison said that
its 3G services won't be heavily discounted when launched; bank
adds that it's "not in their best interests to have a price war."
Many analysts, however, wonder why people will pay a premium for
3G, which they don't think has a "killer application" to woo subscribers.
At the same time Deutsche Bank is cautious about Hutchison Whampoa's
plans to sell its 3G mobile phones through its British pharmacy
chain.
The investment bank said Hutchison intended to enlarge its 3G distribution
network following its 1.3 billion euro acquisition of Dutch health
and beauty retail chain Kruidvat Group.
With the addition of Kruidvat's 700 Superdrug stores and Hutchison's
present Savers chain, the conglomerate can boost its British retail
outlets to 1,000.
However, Deutsche Bank said most of the Superdrug stores were not
in prime locations and were unlikely to draw in the high-end customers
Hutchison hoped to attract for its 3G services.
Superdrug and Savers are low-end mass market health and beauty
discount retailers while 3G users are likely to be high-end customers,
thus, the store-within-a-store concept may not work
However, Hutchison Whampoa group managing director Canning Fok
Kin-ning earlier said: "The store-within-a-store concept will be
our main distribution method for 3G. It's expensive to completely
use our own stores for 3G."
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3G Motorola A920
