Italy's post office aims to have 2 mln mobile phone clients within 3 years

Poste Italiane SpA, the company that runs Italy’s post offices, aims to have 2 mln clients and 500 mln eur in revenues within three years through its PosteMobile virtual mobile operator, daily La Stampa cited CEO Massimo Sarmi as saying.

PosteMobile, which will rent the telecommunications network from Vodafone, offers its clients a series of services including using their mobile phones to transfer money, check the balance on their checking account or pay bills.

‘The investments are significant but we have some advantages: we don’t have to build a network and for payments we have a platform that handles 10 mln electronic cards,’ Sarmi said, according to the daily.

Sarmi believes his target is ‘reasonable’ despite the saturation of the mobile phone market for these reasons.

According to Poste Italiane, the Italian post office is the first postal group worldwide to join the telephone services sector.