Helio is releasing some numbers pre-3GSM and pre-CTIA: it says that the company will have about 100K subscribers in Q2. All of these are all post-paid…Helio markets itself an upmarket MVNO and does not have any pre-paid.
I spoke briefly to Sky Dayton, CEO of Helio, earlier today and he gave me some lowdown on the numbers, as well as plans ahead. At the end of 2006, Sky said Helio was on a run rate of $100 million…of course it only launched in May, and ramp up only started after July, so tough to get a perspective so early.
Among the granular numbers he emphasized: $100 ARPU, similar to its competitor Amp’d; an estimated 25 percent of that from data services; WAP penetration is over 85% for all users; MySpace Mobile is used by over 70 percent of Helio subscribers; 400 SMS per member on average over the user lifetime till now; and 40 percent of Helio brand members use IM.
The company has four branded retail stores now: Santa Monica, San Diego, Denver and NYC…and then other distribution networks. Sky hinted at new devices coming out, and would include hybrid W-Fi device (which would be obvious considering his Earthlink and Boingo background).
Also today, the company is launching its music service, Helio Music, though it only works on one handset (the company has three handsets…Kickflip, hero and recently, Drift)…it works on Drift. It will also on the new devices coming out soon. The service is $1.99 of OTA download per song, and later in Spring it will launch dual delivery (on PCs as well as mobiles). When dual delivery gets enabled, PC download will cost 99 cents.
It has also launched a ringback service called Helio Answers, and is a subscription service with a monthly charge of $0.99; individual ringbacks cost $1.99 per download.
Related: <a href="http://www.moconews.net/entry/ampd-mobile-crosses-100k-subscribers-in-06" title="Amp
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