French Firm Wonderphone Bought By Index Multimedia

Index Multimedia, the European/French subsiiary of Japanese mobile content giant Index Corporation has bought out French Mobile video firm Wonderphone.
Wonderphone is among the biggest mobile video companies in Europe and had revenues of $18 million in 2005. It says it owns a catalog of over 3 million videos and works with over 70 mobile operators in around 40 countries. In France, Wonderphone TV runs, amongst other things, the SFR (SFR TV & Video) and Orange (Orange World Video) video offers.
Additionally, Index Multimedia also announced its second half 2005 revenue numbers: it had sales of EUR 77.4 million, 7 % up on the same period the previous financial year (EUR 72.2 million, from 1 July to 31 December 2004). Net Income was EUR 3.60 million over the period.
Ovum’s analysis: “Despite its success story, WonderPhone had two main problems. Firstly, its size was rather limited (70 employees) for addressing worldwide distribution and getting involved in various activities (platform management, production, post-production). The Index acquisition should remove this issue. The second issue is the question of the level of the profits available for a middleman specialising in mobile video, sandwiched in between rights owners and mobile operators. Small margins could be the reason why [CEO and founder Philip] Plaisance decided to exit the market so fast. . .”

Related: MobileTV Startup Wonderphone In The Money

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