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June 3 2003

Hutchison Whampoa has announced its 3G mobile unit in Europe has signed up more than 60,000 contract subscribers in Italy and the UK to its fledgling 3G service.


The group also revealed it had secured an additional 30,000 orders for mobile vendors for prepaid cards.

Hutchison managing director, Canning Fok, said that subscribers would begin receiving their handsets by the middle of next week. It is great news for the operator which has been plagued by months of technical problems and delays. The service has been launched for just a month, so the company believes it is well on the way to hitting its goal of 1 million subscribers by the end of the year.

The problems in launching the service led to the group to seek creditor approval earlier this month to extend its loans for one year to 2005. 3 UK was forced to request a £1bn cash injection from its shareholders.

As reported yesterday, Hutchison has already committed to meet the cash call while its partners, Dutch carrier KPN which holds 15 percent of the company, and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, owner of the remainder, have until next month to decide.
 

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