Business News Americas | March 2, 2011 | Patrick Nixon
Chilean telco Movistar expects to launch in the next year a series of new applications around the areas of education, e-health and mobile banking, senior executives from the operator told BNamericas.
The notion that mobile operators have to move beyond being merely a “dumb pipe,” or a conduit of information, to become a participant in the revenue pie of value-added services has been a top discussion topic at recent telecoms events.
Fernando Saiz, operations and services director for the Movistar Chile network, underscored the importance of what the operator has been doing with its Innova incubator program, which supports technological innovation in the area of applications. The company said in January that it was preparing to kick off a US$100mn investment fund that will be ready in March.
“It is bearing a lot of fruit, and in the coming years we’re going to see an explosion of developers. Movistar is going to launch a series of applications in the region… that go from e-health to the virtual world,” Saiz said.
“Many of these services have been coming for years, but it has not been possible to materialize them. But now we’re going to see them in the 2011-12 timeframe – for example, lots of things in education services,” he said.
Javier Valenzuela, devices manager for Movistar Chile, added that the company is seeking to develop the area of mobile banking.
“We’ve done some things in that area, but other countries are much more advanced, and that area should be developed more in the future,” Valenzuela said. “The device is a medium that we can use as a payment point…. Mobile banking is a real service and very practical. Just think of how often you accidentally leave your wallet at home.”
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