[London, ENGLAND] Late deals company
lastminute.com plc announced
Friday it has signed two more WAP agreements, this time with
One 2 One in the U.K. and Bouygues Telecom in France.
lastminute.com’s list of WAP partners now reads like
a roll-call of the industry, with Orange, Vodafone,
BTCellnet, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom all
having signed.
The latest deals mean that WAP users of the One 2 One
and Bouygues networks will be able select from lastminute.com’s
wide range of late offerings, including flights, holidays,
restaurants, hotels and entertainment.
Brent Hoberman, chief executive officer and co-founder
of lastminute.com, claimed that his company’s products and
services were extremely well-suited to new platforms in
general and to WAP phones in particular.
“With the number of Net-enabled mobile handsets forecast
to overtake the number of Internet PCs in Europe by the
end of 2003, it is crucial for us to reach as wide a
percentage of the European mobile market as possible,”
said Hoberman.
One 2 One is a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom
and its handsets can be used in 86 territories on five
continents through roaming agreements with 175 operators.
Its potential reach in the U.K. covers nearly all the
population (over 98 percent), while its customer base is
just over 6 million. It handles 200 million calls a week.
Outside the U.K., lastminute.com operates local language
sites in France, Germany and Sweden. It intends to start
operations in Australia and South Africa, having signed
joint venture agreements earlier this year.
WAP details for lastminute.com can be found at
mobile.lastminute.com/wap/.