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To: Eric L who wrote (12399)	6/10/2001 5:53:26 PM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 34857

re: WAP & etradeing in Hong Kong WAP Presence Spreads Despite Indications of Investor Reluctance South China Morning Post Jun 07 2001 WAP is still in fashion - at least in some sector. Online brokers are increasingly introducing WAP (wireless application protocol) technology allowing investors to access investment information via mobile phones even though its popularity is still in doubt. Brokers said its popularity was growing, despite the global economic downturn. They also said that present wireless users were among the most active and affluent investors. Charles Schwab, the world's biggest online broker, yesterday became the latest local broker to introduce a WAP service, with the launch of PocketBroker. "This is the right time to launch the service because we see more and more users are changing their phones to WAP on a monthly basis," said Christina Hui, Charles Schwab's regional general manager. Ms Hui said the new service gave the broker a competitive advantage over its rivals. She said the company's United States parent had conducted a survey of US investors in March which revealed that 40 per cent would trade less and invest fewer assets with a broker if it did not offer a WAP service. She cited figures supplied by the Office of the Telecommunications Authority which showed that more than 160,000 users changed mobile- phone networks in April. Many of these were also thought to have upgraded their phone sets to WAP at the same time. However, no figure was available on the rate of WAP phone penetration in Hong Kong. Some analysts and brokers said WAP phones were rather unpopular among Hong Kong mobile-phone users. Chris Cheung, an analyst at Worldsec International, estimated that "only a handful of users [were] using WAP phones in Hong Kong". "This is because the speed of WAP services is still very slow," he said. Karen Buck, managing director of TD Waterhouse Hong Kong, which was the first broker to provide WAP trading services in the SAR, said investors were reluctant to make trades over their WAP handsets. Ms Buck said only about 5 per cent of the firm's online trades had been done through the WAP channel. << - Eric -