O2's i-mode to launch next month
Mobile internet from Interflora to Spearmint Rhinos
O2 has announced a 1 October launch date for its i-mode mobile data service.Originally developed by Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo, i-mode has around 50 million users, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region. Now O2 is hoping to stir further interest in Europe by launching i-mode in three countries across the continent next month – Ireland, Germany and the UK.
O2 has teamed up with around 100 partners to provide content for the launch of the mobile internet service including The Financial Times, online bank Egg, Streetmap and Viz, who will charge up to £3 a month for a subscription.
The number of partners is expected to grow with time - the original i-mode home, Japan, now has 4,000 official sites - while O2 is keen to encourage the 'unofficial' i-mode economy which in France has seen 3,000 sites spring up for operator Bouygues.
Among the big names not present, however, are Amazon and eBay. Hugh Griffiths, head of data products at O2, revealed the latter is expected to join in November and O2 is still in discussion with the former.
O2 will also be giving each user a personal email address for i-mode's push email service – imaginatively named i-mail – which, according to the operator, is "BlackBerry-like".
To tempt users to experiment with the mini-internet service, O2 will be offering browsing on a pay per megabyte basis and email as pay per message at the same price as SMS or MMS, if sent with an attachment.
According to Grahame Riddell, O2's head of mobile data marketing, the two markets aren't expected to cannibalise each other. "We don't believe its text substitutional, we believe it's a new opportunity," he said.
However, O2 is hoping text behaviour will rub off on consumers. He added: "When people send a text they don't think of the price. We want them to [use i-mode] and not worry about the price."
As the i-mode service can only be accessed through enabled handsets, O2 will be introducing four devices for October – the NEC 411i, the NEC 343i, Samsung S500i and one 3G handset, the Samsung Z320i. The i-mode phones will be available for between free and £279, dependent on contract.
Other phone manufacturers are expected to join the portfolio in the future.
O2 is also very interested in the potential for bringing FeliCa – the contactless payment system based on i-mode – handsets to the UK.