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To: Eric L who wrote (16732)	11/23/2001 3:01:04 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 34857

Austrian portal makes mobile web's first profit By Maija Pesola in London Published: November 23 2001 15:48 \| Last Updated: November 23 2001 16:08 Europe's beleaguered mobile internet industry was given a slim ray of hope on Friday with the news that an Austrian mobile portal had made what is believed to be the sector's first profit. Sms.at, an Austrian portal owned by UCP, the German-based wireless company, said it had made an operating profit of E268,889 (£235,752) for the first nine months of the year, on revenues of E3.92m. The sums may be comparatively modest, but the move to profitability puts sms.at ahead of larger rivals such as Vizzavi, the portal joint venture between Vodafone and Vivendi, Genie, which is part of the UK's MMO2, and Deutsche Telekom's T-Motion, which all continue to make large losses. The latest interim figures from MMO2, for example, showed Genie making a six-month loss of £65m on revenues of only £39m. Sms.at's move into the black is also in sharp contrast to mounting industry concerns over spending and debt levels, which have led to the scaling back of mobile internet ambitions across Europe. Earlier this week, Telefónica Moviles, the Spanish mobile operator, announced the closure of its Iobox mobile phone portal activities in Finland and Sweden, while Finland's Sonera Zed has indicated that it is scaling down activities. Genie, the mobile phone portal that is part MMO2, has pulled back from operations in France. Christian Lutz, the chief executive of UCP said sms.at's move to profit had been aided by the introduction of paid services, including one that allows users to process and send photographs online and over mobiles. The higher average age of the portal's users may also have been a factor. Most of Sms.at users are between 20 to 35, in contrast to UCP's more youth-oriented - and still loss-making - portal Uboot, where a majority of users are under the age of 20. "It is more of a challenge to get money from Uboot users as most of them do not have things like credit cards," Mr Lutz said. UCP as a whole, he added was set to reach break-even by April next year. It's move into the black could be followed by T-Motion, which recently moved to charging users for content and has forecast that it will reach profitability in each market it operates in within 18 months of launch. The ability to offer content that users are willing to pay for will be a key factor in achieving profitability, say analysts at Gartner Dataquest, the research company. But equally important in the struggle for survival is the presence of a mobile phone sugar-daddy. "The mobile internet is poised for significant growth, and operators' portal strategy is central to that. Operators will be willing to keep supporting portals even though they don't make money," says Ben Wood, senior analyst at Gartner Dataquest.