In Czech Republic, Netsize is now connected with Vodafone through its direct connection and with T-Mobile and Telefónica O2 through a new third party aggregator.
Czech Republic is the fourth largest market in Eastern Europe, after Russia and Ukraine and Poland. In terms of mobile subscribers, its mobile penetration rate of 133% is the highest in Eastern Europe and in the top-5 globally (source: Netsize Guide 2009 / Informa Telecoms and Media). Some 3% of the 13.6 million Czech subscribers have 3G subscriptions.
Messaging continues to grow. O2 reported that its 5.3 million customers sent and received over 3.3 billion SMS in 2008, a year-on-year increase of 8.1% (source: Telefónica O2 Czech Republic annual report 2008).
The main operator-based payment model is MO Premium and it is used with applications that end users can exclusively use through their handsets: wallpapers and logos, ringtones and micropayment services. Micropayments are usually intended to purchase digital content, access to internet sites, etc. and generally all services are allowed. Voting is allowed too, as are mobile entertainment and mobile gaming content.
In Czech Republic it is also allowed to use MT premium. It is mostly applied with content subscription and infotainment services, and the subscriber opts-in via SMS, IVR, WAP or Web. Recently it has become possible to use MT premium also for pay-per-use micropayment services where the user is billed if the transaction was successful. Local regulations for MT premium are very precise and maintain a high level of end user protection. Still many opportunities exist for new business models that can do well in this vibrant market.
The most often used price points for premium services are 35, 40, 50, 79 and 99 CZK. We recommend a price point of 3 CZK for standard rate services and marketing campaigns but on this rate there is no revenue sharing.
Mobile operators in Czech Republic do not have a WAP billing offer yet. However, viewing the success of WAP billing in other countries, operators have started to investigate the opportunity. In the past year all operators have been introducing mobile internet offerings and bundles, and consumer use of mobile internet is growing rapidly. We keep a watch on the further developments.
