Necessary experience
Piotr Długiewicz, managing director at One-2-One, says he cannot estimate the profits the new service will generate. „On the other hand, our experience tells us that it could be a significant project,” he adds.
Krzysztof Kowalczyk, from the Internet Society Poland, says One-2-One‘s management has the necessary experience to provide the services. „I would be careful if we talk about those kinds of services. The barriers to entering the market are very large because of the competition. The margin isn‘t significant either. They can succeed if their new offer is based on the services they have provided so far,” says Kowalczyk.
Yet the firm must feel confident about the prospects of the project. Both the contract with MMP and another contract for live radio streaming and web hosting for Eurozet (the company behind Radio Zet and Radiostacja), are the result of a new strategy which will diversify One-2-One‘s services. Apart from mobile projects, the company will also create marketing synergies between various media.
Changing market
Currently, services are divided between online and mobilephone services, but Tomasz Długiewicz expects this division to disappear by the end of 2015. He believes the company‘s change in strategy should be reflected in the company‘s revenues much earlier than that. In 2005 some 70 percent of revenues came from premium text-message services, and only 30 percent from other services, such as consulting. This year, he says the company wants 40 percent of revenues to come from texting services, and 60 percent from other services.
The president says he is happy with the current financial results. In H1 2006, the company made zł.199,000 in net profit and achieved sales of zł.6.32 million. The revenues for the full-year 2005 amounted to zł.9.2 million while net profit came in at zł.558,000, compared with zł.4.4 million and zł.290,000 respectively in 2004.
In 2006, the prognosis assumed an increase of revenues for the entire year to zł.17.6 million and a net profit of zł.1.5 million. Tomasz Długiewicz says Q4 met his expectations. „Everything went according to plan,” he added.
According to Tomasz Kulisiewicz, an independent telecommunications- market analyst, this year the mobile-marketing services sector will grow by some 30 percent. „The number of companies which offer value-added services is growing. So is the demand for them,” he points out. One-2-One is optimistic about its future results. Revenues in 2007 are expected to rise by 50 percent, not only because of the growing market, but also because of the company‘s increasing credibility, say company representatives. „This is also because of our presence on the Warsaw bourse,” says the president.
Hungry for more
Last August, the Poznań-based company entered the Warsaw Stock Exchange, acquiring zł.13 million. Before the debut, the company wanted to designate some 70 percent of the raised capital to acquisitions. In autumn, One-2-One announced it would complete an acquisition of a similar company operating in Slovakia or the Czech Republic by the end of 2006. These plans have been postponed, but the company still wants to spend zł.9.2 million on the deal.
„We are expecting to be able to complete two out of three acquisitions by the end of H1 this year,” says Piotr Długiewicz, adding that one foreign project will start the process of building a regional group around One-2-One. „The other project based in Poland will enable us to expand the scale of our operations,” he says. Kulisiewicz says it is very difficult to acquire companies operating in the industry. „Only giants such as France Telecom or Deutsche Telekom have managed to take over others, except for in the Baltic states, which are frequently treated as one market. Several companies offering internet services have been taken over. Now only some niche companies could be acquired,” he says.
Andrzej Wróbel
CEO: Tomasz Długiewicz
Strengths:
The leading position in the mobile-marketing sector
Detailed acquisition plans
Weaknesses:
Increasing competition on the market
Relatively small number of employees
One-2-One, Poland‘s leading supplier of mobile-marketing solutions, has signed an agreement with Marquard Media Polska (MMP) to launch an interactive service, CKM.pl, an online addition to the men‘s magazine CKM. „We are going to prepare a special website, maintain it and provide interactive communication with service users. This will be the first such project for the company,” says Tomasz Długiewicz, the president of One-2-One.
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