More info on SinoBull's new wireless services:
This new product from Financial Telecom (SinoBull subsidiary) actually taps into a key technology medium. While Financial Telecom's services were
designed for the growing PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) market, a joint venture with Asia Paging Networks was formed for delivery to not just PDA's
but also bi-directional pagers. This is important to note, since Asia Paging Networks, like many paging companies, are worried about shrinking interest
in pagers since most people in Hong Kong also have mobile phones. Financial Telecom's new product provides a key reason to keep those pagers,
since this functionality is not practical for replacement by mobile phones (like traditional paging has). Why is this not practical? Mobile phones in Hong
Kong are widely not WAP-enabled, and even for those that are, power consumption is an inconvenience for WAP phones since they would need to be
constantly active to make use of this service, draining power reserves.
This description of the service will help to conceptualize Financial Telecom's product functionality. Basically, a customer edits a private list of stocks
they are interested in, and through Asia Paging Networks' broadcast coverage in Hong Kong the PDA's and bi-directional pagers pick up the streaming
signal from Financial Telecom of stock quotes. So in effect, a customer can set their pager down on the table in a meeting, and can look down from
time to time (or when bored) to watch the streaming quotes go by on the stocks they are keeping an eye on. About every couple minutes a market
summary on the stock's market action scrolls by, and periodically broad market statistics also become available. Customers can also place orders to
buy or sell and it gets transmitted to their brokerage.
Since announcing and advertising this new product a few days ago, Financial Telecom has been swamp with calls for more information and product
availability. Since this feeds investor interest and would likely increase buying and selling activity (thus commissions), Financial Telecom is working
with a few brokerages to code pagers with specific frequencies to each of the subscribing brokerage houses, thus their clients can make trades and
use these devices. Once subscribed brokerages can also offer these devices as their own product. Planned is the inclusion of Financial Telecom's
products and services to Koffman Securities as well. Financial Telecom and Asia Paging Networks are still working to contact each brokerage in Hong
Kong about providing this service to their customers.
Regardless of who puts the new products into the hands of the customer, a base $20 US is the monthly fee for general paging service and PDA
streaming. Of that fee, about $10 goes to Asia Paging Networks, and $10 goes to Financial Telecom. The end customer may actually pay more or less
than the $20 per month, depending on various promotions or fees the subscribing brokerage passes on to the customer, or if additional services are
requested. So even with a conservative estimate of 10,000 customers that's a monthly revenue of $100,000 US. In addition, Financial Telecom is the
technology provider, so they also can get installation and maintenance fees for the equipment at the brokerage offices to receive the wireless trade
orders and broadcasting confirmations. Also, the costs of supporting these products are fairly low, and for the most part a fixed cost. So the cost to
Financial Telecom to support 10,000 customers or 1,000,000 customers is essentially the same, which is sending a constant stream of quotes on all
stocks to Asia Paging Networks for them to broadcast. So this is anticipated to have a high profitability ratio.
In addition, Asia Paging Networks newest line of pagers can support this service if customers bring them back for firmware upgrades. For PDA users,
they can go to Asia Paging's site to download the new software application that would handle the streaming services. Since this productline and service
is being received with such popularity, Financial Telecom and SinoBull are eagerly looking forward to contacting other paging companies in other
countries about providing like services foster new functionality and viable use over mobile phones which is threatening to overtake pager customers in
many markets. Due to certain perceived cultural tendancies for stock trading, Mainland China and Asia are a primary target of focus, but Financial
Telecom will also look towards the US market as well if enough critical mass is obtained.
Hrctweb
Hrct@Hartcourt.com
Webmaster of The Hartcourt Companies |
