truphone press release:

Global mobile network operator Truphone today launched a beta of its mobile internet telephony service, Truphone Anywhere, for BlackBerry® smartphones. Truphone Anywhere brings simple, easy and cheap international calling to up to 40 million BlackBerry users across the world.

Truphone Anywhere works in 33 countries worldwide. It saves BlackBerry users from those countries money on the international calls they make from their home country. The service works alongside domestic service providers, but reduces international call costs to as little as £0.03/$0.06 per minute.

Truphone works with the user to save them money. Instead of requiring the user to remember what to do, Truphone Anywhere simply asks whether he/she wants to make a Truphone call whenever an international number is dialled. The user simply accepts, and Truphone connects the call.

“There’s no GSM business tariff that gets close to the prices we can offer BlackBerry users with Truphone for international calling,” said Geraldine Wilson, new CEO of Truphone. “And in these days of financial belt-tightening, businesses are looking at every means of cutting costs, which is an opportunity for us. Truphone is a genuine alternative carrier for international calls, with the potential to reduce annual mobile bills for the largest companies by many millions of dollars,” continued Wilson.

Aaron Simpson is the BlackBerry-using chief executive of Quintessentially, a private members’ club that provides a 24-hour global concierge service and is part of the world’s leading luxury lifestyle group. He stated: “Quintessentially has offices all around the world and, as CEO, I’m in constant contact with all of them. I’ve been using Truphone on my Blackberry and its low call rates have enabled me to make those calls at a fraction of the cost of using my mobile provider.”

In technical terms, Truphone Anywhere works by connecting to a local Truphone server, which then connects the long-distance part of the call over the internet. Because most BlackBerry users are contract customers, the local connection to Truphone is, typically, free because it uses bundled minutes from the customer’s usual cellular service provider.

Truphone for BlackBerry smartphones is available to download for free from www.truphone.com/blackberry. Alternatively, Handango users may also download Truphone from www.handango.com. There are no monthly subscriptions or other charges.

truphone, the mobile internet network operator, is pleased to announce the appointment of Geraldine Wilson as CEO.

Geraldine joins from Yahoo! where she was VP and GM EMEA Connected Life, Yahoo!’s Mobile and Broadband division. She was previously with Vodafone where she held key board positions in the UK and Sweden, including CCO, MD UK Content Services and Director of Prepay UK. Geraldine is an INSEAD graduate.

The appointment marks a new phase of growth for Truphone, which will increasingly aim to attract ‘typical’ mobile phone users to its low-cost, mobile internet telephony service.

Truphone raised over US$30m in its 2008 B Round after having raised the largest European Series A funding of 2006 with support from Straub Ventures, Eden Ventures, Wellington Partners, Independent News & Media and Burda Digital Ventures, together with significant angel investors. John McMonigall of Apax is Chairman of the board.

About Truphone
The first true mobile internet network operator, Truphone allows users of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile phones to make and receive regular telephone calls, and to send and receive SMS [text] messages, using only a Wi-Fi connection and the internet. Although still in beta, it has already attracted tens of thousands of users in 149 countries. Truphone is the trading name of Software Cellular Network (SCN). SCN is privately owned, funded by both venture capital investment and angel investors.

For more information, please visit www.truphone.com

Stefan talks about his background as an entrepreneur and explains what Straub Ventures are seeking in young companies. As it is all in German, here are some of the main points:

- we look for real disruptive technologies and businesses

- we look for big market opportunities

- don’t copy something from the US

To get us excited and spend our time and effort on your company, it better follow these rules.

Here is the interview with Stefan Menden

I just read the Q2 2008 results from Germany’s o2.

The average customer in Germany on O2:

• Voice 144 Minutes (plus 9 percent)
• SMS 829 (plus 12 percent)

Turnover development (weakening due to prepaid erosion) Contract customer: Euro 29.30 (plus 17 percent) - 6.7m customers - customer growth (17 percent) Prepaid Customer: Euro 6,10 (minus 9 percent) - 6.8m customers - customer growth (18 percent)

Total ARPU / customer (pre and postpay) / month: Euro 17,60 (minus 16 percent) (compared to Q2 2007)

My analysis:
While VOICE and SMS are growing quarter by quarter (annual growth between 10 - 12 percent) the business is under very strong pressure from price erosion in the prepaid segment. Contract customers are moving heavily to prepaid (mix now 50 / 50) (confirmed to me by CEO of Carphone Warehouse Germany). Therefore strong revenue and margin cannibalization from prepaid discounters for all mobile players (o2 is offering 9 euro cent / min), T-Mobile 8 euro cent / min which is about the termination rates in Germany. O2 discounters are Fonic, e-plus simyo, T-Mobile Maxxim, Congstar, Vodafone Bild, all of them at 9 cent / min except now Maxxim with 8 eurocent / min.

Clearly money is still being made as the small print reveals that special numbers like 018 (service numbers) are charged at very high rates, (example 69 cent / min at Maxxim) as well as very very high rates for prepaid for international Calls. We think this is a great opportunity for Truphone to act as an add on to millions of prepaid customers who don’t want nasty surprises when calling international. My personal experience has been that truphone saves 80-90% on international calls.

Conclusion:
While voice and SMS is dead (turnover wise), it is growing in actual volume at very healthy levels (not to dissimilar to the napsterisation of the music industry). Once a product goes free the volume explodes. See truphone to truphone usage (see what happens when you convert your near field into truphone customers, voice minutes and SMS goes up dramatically). If all your near field uses truphone (within your companies, your family and friends) your call pattern changes dramatically, plus productivity increases within corporations and individuals due to the added benefit of quick and simple person to person communication globally.

truphone is crystalizing itself as the global telecom operator of choice (for individuals and corporations) for the next century. The next century will be a support driven economy versus the managerial economy of the 20th century (mainly build via the models of entrepreneur Ford and managers like Sloan). So individuals and corporations can adopt by choice a platform like truphone to build a customized AT&T, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom based solution in the IP domain versus the switched infrastructures of the telecom corporation of the 20th century.

This shows how we can improve our marketing. White text in front of Yellow just do not work.