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March 29, 2006
Japan's Index Corp Buys Wonderphone
Japan's Index Corp, a media and telecoms company, is to buy mobile TV and games distribuor, Wonderphone in France through its French subsidiary Index Multimedia. Index has made several acquisitions in the mobile content sector such as Mobliss (US) in 2004, Skyinfo (China), Yarosa (NL), and 123Mutlimedia (France) in 2005.
We just posted on Wonderphone's progress last week, noting the firm's ability to generate sales in the mobile TV market segment. So why sell? Market research firm, Ovum, believes it had to do with thin margins and a need to pull in a strategic investor with an international footprint.
... 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 Plaisance decided to exit the market so fast. . (Ovum)
Read - Index Multimedia Announcement (ITNewswire)
Read - Vincent Poulbere: Index acquires WonderPhone to strengthen mobile video offering (Ovum)
Read - Wonderphone In The Money (alarm:clock euro)
Posted on March 29, 2006 11:41 AM | Posted to Wireless | Permalink
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