A Hit Wireless Road Show
Finland's small, profitable wireless firms show what's working.
April 04, 2001
Kevin McLaughlin
Finland can be described as a hothouse for wireless technology. Shrewd government telecommunication policies, a top-notch education system, and cooperation between competing companies all contribute to the business climate for wireless startups. Notably, the small size and responsible growth rates of these companies have helped many of them to already turn a profit. Now many Finnish wireless companies want to take their businesses global, so they have begun searching for international partners.
As part of that search, Wireless Finland, a traveling road show presenting the products and services of twenty of the country's most promising companies, stopped this week at the iWirelessWorld conference in Los Angeles. The group gave conference attendees a peek at what's already working on the wireless Web.
Technology has permeated Finland's culture, and the fact that it boasts one of the world's highest Internet penetration rates has been crucial to its wireless success. Nearly 70 percent of Finns own a mobile phone, and kids often receive them as gifts around age 10, according to Kimmo Sasi, Finland's minister for foreign trade. Finns can perform a variety of wireless Web tasks that go beyond what's possible in other countries, such as doing taxes and banking chores, he told show attendees.
Some of the more successful products being promoted by the Wireless Finland firms relate to mobile entertainment. The already-profitable startup Small Planet showed off MFriend, a mobile dating service in which users can strike up anonymous short message service (SMS) conversations with other members. Janne Niini, products and marketing manager for Small Planet, says the service will eventually incorporate location-based technology, to let wireless chatting grow into face-to-face meetings.
Small Planet also showcased a wireless entertainment platform called CollectM, which lets service providers create their own community-based games in which players collect and trade items.
But according to Niini, one of the stickiest applications his company has developed so far is an SMS-based fishing game in which users compete to see who lands the largest denizens of the deep. The game has been a significant revenue generator for carriers, and Small Planet has worked out a deal in which it receives 70 cents per game played, Niini notes. The company has already begun to move into markets in Europe and Asia, according to Niini.
Intervisio, another profitable Finnish wireless startup, demonstrated Tilt.tv, a cross-media gaming community that incorporates both wireless and Web elements. The Tilt.tv Web page--registered through the American company Dot.tv, which markets the .tv extension for the country of Tuvalu--gets an average of 1.2 million hits a month, and offers reviews of PC, Nintendo, and PlayStation games, according to CEO Ville Tolvanen. The wireless component consists of SMS-based games, downloadable customized ring tones, and graphical icons.
Ring tones and special icons also form the basis for the mobile entertainment offerings of Akumiitti and Wireless Entertainment Services (WES), two more Finnish companies that have become profitable. Mirja Sipila, business development manager for Akumiitti, claims that more than 10 million ring tones were downloaded from its Website last year.
Kimmo Herranen, business development manager for WES, says that last year his company generated more than $10 million in revenues for carriers, with 2001 revenues projected to be in the range of $30 million. A creative-focused company with only two engineers on staff, WES now has operations in 15 countries, according to Herranan.
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