- Four months after unveiling Internet on the mobile, Vodafone surges ahead with its mobile- Internet convergence strategy and the development of new forms of social relations and communication on the move.
- Vodafone presents new services and applications for downloading and managing music, encouraging users to create and upload their own content onto the mobile, enhancing mobile-based browsing, creating communities on the mobile and checking one's bank transactions.
Madrid, 4th March 2008.- Vodafone surges ahead with its mobile- Internet convergence strategy and the development of new forms of social relations and communication on the move. Vodafone announces new services and applications for downloading and managing music, encouraging users to create and upload their own content onto the mobile, enhancing mobile-based browsing, checking your bank transactions and the Facebook portal.
In October 2007, Vodafone live! became fully web-abled and presented a new user interface with the browsing bar (http://www.) and the Google search engine built into it, in addition to continuing to offer the portal's hottest services: Music, Video games, Vodafone live! TV and Mobile DIGITAL+. Vodafone also signed deals with leading Internet companies such as Yahoo!, YouTube, ebay.es, MySpace, Meetic, and Windows Live Messenger who have built the new social communication networks. With these new launches, Vodafone forges ahead with its Internet-mobile convergence strategy with services and applications such as:
- Vodafone Music Player, the first application for downloading music onto your computer and being able to listen to it both on your mobile and PC at the same time. Customers can now download more than 1 million MP3 songs from the Vodafone live! catalogue, enjoy them both on their PC and mobile, create their own playlists and record their own music CDs with the downloaded songs. Once you've downloaded them, the songs are yours forever. What's more, Vodafone is launching a new music tariff: 1 mp3 a day for €6 a month. (If you download one song, every day of the month, you'll only pay 20 cents per song).
- 'Lookatme', a new service with which Vodafone invites its customers to take part in creating the contents of Vodafone live! Users can now upload their videos, pictures and audio files archives to Vodafone live! by sending an MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) message. What's more, each time other users download them, they'll get 10% of the download price.
- Facebook, the biggest social community and one of the hottest websites is now available on the mobile in Vodafone live! Facebook lets you create profiles and keep in touch with your friends, and with anyone else from your academic, work or leisure circles.
- Mobile Banking, the new direct access that lets customers access their banks and surf the net to check their bank accounts on the mobile, check account transactions, make transfers, deposits, check up on stocks, markets, etc., with the leading banks such as Caja Madrid, Banco Sabadell, Banco Popular, Bankinter, BBVA, La Caixa and Banesto.
- New high speed browsing in Vodafone live! This new browsing offers a heightened user experience and makes it easier to search for content in Vodafone live! by immediately displaying the hottest and latest content.
"At Vodafone we're striving to make the mobile-Internet convergence a reality. There are already more mobiles than people, yet Internet access has hardly topped the 40% penetration mark. Very shortly, the mobile will be the device for accessing Internet and Vodafone will be there to meet the information and entertainment needs that society demands”, explains Antonio García Urgelés, Head of the Vodafone Spain Residential Corporate Business Unit. “It's not just a matter of making Internet mobile. It's a business model that's radically different to the existing one and that at last will democratize Internet access with content, devices and rates within everyone's reach, with the added advantage of mobility", adds García Urgelés.
In a country where mobile phone penetration tops 110%, Vodafone Spain is spearheading the roll-out of the broadband mobile networks needed to offer the new services that will mark the future of personal communications. 3G penetration in Spain outstrips the European average and is higher than in countries such as France, Germany or the United Kingdom. By way of example, HSDPA (High Speed Download Packet Access) coverage is already available throughout the 3G network and the number of 3G customers in Spain has topped the 10 million mark, with Vodafone accounting for more than 45% of them.
For further information, please contact:
Corporate Communications
Vodafone Spain
Victoria Romero
Tel: +34 607 13 34 55
gabinetedeprensa@corp.vodafone.es
Text 100 Spain
Cristina Martín or Tomás Alonso
Tel:+ 34 91 561 94 15
cristina.martin@text100.es
tomas.alonso@text100.es