Canarian Weekly
30-11-2012, 12:40
SPAIN’S three biggest mobile operators are teaming up to launch a service they hope will help them better compete with the likes of WhatsApp, Viber and Skype, which are luring customers with the promise of free phone calls and messages.
The Joyn service from Telefonica’s Movistar, France Telecom’s Orange and Vodafone will offer free messaging, enhanced call features and in some cases free calls.
The move comes amid a sharp fall in the number of paid-for text messages sent in recession-hitSpain, where the unemployment rate stands at one in four and where WhatsApp is the best-selling application on Apple Inc’s App Store.
The service has become so well known that the government here inTenerifehas said officials should use the application to cut mobile bills.
Joyn, which allows users to send video and pictures while on a smart phone, is available for Android phones and will shortly launch for Apple’s iPhone.
More telecoms companies inSpainand globally are expected to offer the service, which will be implemented across operators inGermanylater this year and in several European countries in 2013.
“This is the beginning of something that will cross most operators in most countries,” said Graham Trickey, senior projects director at telecoms organisation GSMA.
Telefonica and Vodafone have lost hundreds of thousands of clients inSpainthis year since they stopped subsidising smartphones, a policy Vodafone recently reversed.
Cash-strapped consumers are spending less on traditional telecom services, a boon to Internet-based services like WhatsApp and Skype.
The number of paid-for text messages sent inSpaindropped to 1.5 billion in the second quarter of 2012, from 1.9 billion in the same period the year before, according to the country’s telecoms regulator.
Operators are keen to maintain customer loyalty, even if they are not making money from them. And Telefonica, Vodafone andOrangecould charge for some Joyn services in future.
“It’s possible that in the future we could launch new added-value services that could be paid for, for example better quality videocalls,” a spokeswoman for OrangeSpainsaid
More... (http://www.canarianweekly.com/joyn-jostles-whatsapp/)
The Joyn service from Telefonica’s Movistar, France Telecom’s Orange and Vodafone will offer free messaging, enhanced call features and in some cases free calls.
The move comes amid a sharp fall in the number of paid-for text messages sent in recession-hitSpain, where the unemployment rate stands at one in four and where WhatsApp is the best-selling application on Apple Inc’s App Store.
The service has become so well known that the government here inTenerifehas said officials should use the application to cut mobile bills.
Joyn, which allows users to send video and pictures while on a smart phone, is available for Android phones and will shortly launch for Apple’s iPhone.
More telecoms companies inSpainand globally are expected to offer the service, which will be implemented across operators inGermanylater this year and in several European countries in 2013.
“This is the beginning of something that will cross most operators in most countries,” said Graham Trickey, senior projects director at telecoms organisation GSMA.
Telefonica and Vodafone have lost hundreds of thousands of clients inSpainthis year since they stopped subsidising smartphones, a policy Vodafone recently reversed.
Cash-strapped consumers are spending less on traditional telecom services, a boon to Internet-based services like WhatsApp and Skype.
The number of paid-for text messages sent inSpaindropped to 1.5 billion in the second quarter of 2012, from 1.9 billion in the same period the year before, according to the country’s telecoms regulator.
Operators are keen to maintain customer loyalty, even if they are not making money from them. And Telefonica, Vodafone andOrangecould charge for some Joyn services in future.
“It’s possible that in the future we could launch new added-value services that could be paid for, for example better quality videocalls,” a spokeswoman for OrangeSpainsaid
More... (http://www.canarianweekly.com/joyn-jostles-whatsapp/)