Press Release Source: ICM Telecommunications
ICM Telecommunications CEO Doug Hamby Featured on Internet Web Radio Program by IPOdesktop.com
Monday July 21, 9:05 am ET
Company Sees Rapid Expansion of Its Prepaid Products, Services
LAKE OSWEGO, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 2003--IPOdesktop.com, in the first of an expected series of Internet radio reports featuring ICM Telecommunications, Inc. (Other OTC: ICMH - News), today interviewed the company's President & CEO, Doug Hamby, about the firm's rapidly expanding business.
The show's host, Francis Gaskins, Editor of IPO Desktop.com, interviewed Hamby. Listeners may hear the interview by accessing it at gaskinsco.com or via Windows Media at mmslb.eonstreams.com.
ICM Telecommunications offers prepaid pin-based products through its Point of Sales Activation (POSA) terminals. During the interview, Hamby noted that current products and services available for purchase include prepaid cellular telephone recharge, telephone calling cards, home dial tone, roadside assistance, discounted prescription drug cards and MasterCard transactions.
Last week, Hamby said, the company launched a major product expansion, introducing one of the cellular telephone industry's most well recognized, high quality, and high profile product offerings -- the Samsung Model 850 flip-top telephone, making it available to consumers who would otherwise not have access to such a product.
"Based on current industry data, this represents a major advancement in our business plan," said ICM's President & CEO, Doug Hamby. "Now, in addition to our customers enjoying multiple prepaid services, they have the opportunity to have access to a product that other providers demand high credit ratings and other hurdles to obtaining. With our new plan, everyone has the ability to own and use a cellular phone, without such restrictions, and at a modest starting price.
"The nature of our agreement requires that we do not disclose its identity, but we can say that it is one of the foremost cellular telephone service providers in the nation," the CEO said.
Hamby also noted that the number of grocery and convenience stores now featuring the company's Electronic Payment & Inventory System (EPIS) has grown to 85, primarily in the Seattle/Tacoma and metropolitan Portland, Oregon markets. He said the company anticipates additional sales coverage extending to the northern and central regions of California in coming months.
The company's EPIS hardware and software package enables the retailer to process a broad range of services, all on the same terminal, and now prepaid cellular phones as well. "This is how ICM intends to treat prepaid products in a long-term fashion for its marketplace," said Hamby. "We are focusing on four key segments: the unbanked and credit challenged, teenagers, travelers and those with lower incomes."
He noted that industry analysts now believe that within two years, by 2005, the overall market for prepaid products will climb to as much as $4 to $5 billion. Just in the prepaid wireless industry, said the CEO, research analysts predict that prepaid wireless revenues will represent a continually growing part of this market, growing from $3.3 billion in 2002 to $4.4 billion in 2003 as its momentum continues to outpace other communications industry segments.
The CEO said that industry research suggests that by 2005, more than 74% of retailers, the majority of them grocery and convenience stores, will be utilizing POSA terminals, because they lower inventory cost and shrinkage, cost nothing to install, and represent a new and continuing source of revenue for them.
Statements contained in this release, which are not historical facts, may be considered "forward-looking statements" under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and the current economic environment. We caution the reader that such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Unknown risk, uncertainties as well as other uncontrollable or unknown factors could cause actual results to materially differ from the results, performance, or expectations expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
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Contact:
ICM Telecommunications, Inc.
Doug Hamby, 503/534-3663
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Source: ICM Telecommunications |
