Tag: Poste Italiane

Vodafone virtual mobile commitments accepted by Italy's antitrust authority

Italy’s antitrust authority said it has accepted commitments made by Vodafone Group PLC to open its network to virtual mobile operators, ending its probe into Vodafone without imposition of sanctions.

The authority said its decision follows contracts signed by Vodafone with BT Group PLC and Carrefour enabling them to set up Italian virtual mobile operations, plus a similar preliminary contract with Poste Italiane.

‘The authority has considered the contract signed by Vodafone with BT Italia for wholesale access services to its network to be a decisive element,’ the authority said in a statement.

BT will be able to offer a wide range of mobile services including GSM, GPRS and UMTS as well as offering integrated fixed-mobile and mobile-mobile services for company customers, it said.

‘In addition, the contract’s conditions on termination fees allow BT Italia to make a fixed-mobile offer to company clients that competes with the one offered by Vodafone,’ it said.

On the Italian post office preliminary contract, the authority said this is particularly important because of the extensive sales network the post office has available.

The authority launched its investigation into mobile sector competition in February 2005, with Telecom Italia SpA and Wind Telecommunicazioni SpA also being probed.

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Third Round Table of International Post-CIOs

IT-Managers of the Postal Organisations from Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria meet in Budapest

Since the first and second Post CIO Roundtable were very successful, the third international „Postal CIO Roundtable“ (PCR) will take place in Budapest on 24 May. The Post CIO Roundtable is an initiative launched by the Austrian post office (Österreichische Post AG), hosted by the Hungarian post office (Magyar Posta Zrt.) and is aimed at promoting information exchanges between the IT functions of postal organisations.

Although postal organisations are more than ever in competition with one another in largely liberalized markets, at this meeting of experts cooperation on the technical challenges is the focus. It is seen as a means of promoting the development of new postal IT solutions, leading to the marketing of member companies proprietary technologies. The Round Table is also viewed as a platform for establishing internationally applicable standard key performance indicators and initiating regular benchmarking processes.

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Italy's post office aims for 2 mln mobile customers in Vodafone virtual link-up

Poste Italiana is aiming for 2 mln mobile telephone customers from its recent virtual mobile network deal with Vodafone Group PLC, said post CEO Massimo Sarmi.

In an interview with La Repubblica, Sarmi said studies predict that there will be 20 mln new mobile users in the next five years in Italy.

‘We plan to gain 10 pct of these new users. Let’s say we count on gaining 2 mln new users. With 2 mln users our mobile phone operation will be in profit. So it is sensible move,’ he said.

In April, Vodafone and Poste Italiana announced a virtual mobile operator deal, giving Poste Italiana access to Vodafone’s mobile network.

Sarmi said he hopes to launch the mobile service by Christmas.

Poste Italiana sees scope to link up its mobile customers with electronic payment cards, for which the post has 9 mln customers, allowing customers to make payments using their mobile phones, he said.

‘We are working a lot around the question of micro-payments with the mobile phone, with our mobile phone naturally,’ he said.

Mobile phones can be filled up with 200 or 500 euro of credit, which can then be spent in retail outlets, he said, citing Japanese experience.

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Vodafone seals handset supply deal with Poste Italiane

Vodafone will today announce a wholesale deal on mobile telephony with Poste Italiane as part of efforts to counter slowing revenue growth in its Italian business, the Financial Times reported.

The Italian postal service, which has 14,000 branches, will offer mobile phones and related services to its customers. They will be branded Poste Italiane while running on the Vodafone network, the newspaper said.

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Italy shows how to make a profit from post offices

Royal Mail could learn something from the humble Italian postie.
Massimo Sarmi, 60, took over Poste Italiane in 2002. Today, he will declare the fifth consecutive year of profits for the company, after more than five decades of losses.
In the first half of last year, the group’s net profits rose by 72.6pc to euro 378m (GBP 257m). By comparison, Royal Mail said last month that its first half profits last year sunk by 86pc to just GBP 22m, although the fall was largely because of a steep rise in the costs of servicing the GBP 6.6bn deficit in its pension fund. Royal Mail has threatened to close half of its 14,000 post offices, which it says are losing it GBP 4m a week. The move would leave many people stranded without a post office for miles.
But while Poste Italiane’s network of post offices is also losing money, it now provides the backbone of a company which has diversified into retail banking, insurance and even selling vacuum cleaners, all of which produce bumper profits for the company.
Consequently, he based his strategy on the fact that he can reach almost every Italian and installed IT systems so that rural post offices could connect to the main office and start happily selling mortgages, bank accounts, and insurance.
Mr Sarmi said Royal Mail should do the same, if it wants to survive.

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