By editorial@silicon.com, 25 July 2000 17:27
NEWS Terra Mobile has bought iobox, the European wireless portal for E230m (£141.5m). The move places Terra Mobile - which is jointly owned by Telefonica Moviles and Terra Networks - in a prominent position in the wireless internet business. ibox technology will give Terra Mobile customers access to mobile messaging, personal management applications, mobile entertainment, information services and a wireless m-commerce platform from the internet, SMS and WAP devices. Terra Mobile is a mobile internet portal based in Europe and Latin America founded in July 2000. According to Eliseo Sanchez, CEO of Terra Mobile, the acquisition of iobox will provide its parent companies with "first mover advantage in the wireless portal game" and the option to expand from the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking market into other areas of Europe. In mid-May the Telefonica Group recorded a 34.2 per cent profit gain in the first quarter results, which, according to a company statement, reflected the accelerated growth of their mobile unit Telefonica Moviles in Spain. Iobox started life in Helsinki in 1999 and now has 120 staff. It has over one million registered users in Finland, Germany, Sweden and the UK and plans to rollout activities in other European countries such as France, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.
In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.
Log in or create your silicon.com account below