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NEW YORK—A new mobile virtual network operator targeting Chinese-Americans officially launched today, offering cheap international calls to Asia and a Razr phone with menus in Chinese.
Red Pocket Mobile soft-launched about two weeks ago, according to Max Smetannikov, vice president of business development for Global Advertising Strategies, which specializes in helping MVNOs market to multicultural groups. At the Informa MVNO Sustainable Business Models conference, Smetannikov said that Red Pocket would begin a major marketing push in Chinese-language media today. He added that out of “several thousand” handsets that already had been provided to distributors in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, “half the product is gone.”
The service will be available for purchase in those three cities, and Red Pocket also has put together an “aggressive compensation schedule for distributors,” Smetannikov said.
Smetannikov said that the 4 million Chinese-Americans in the United States make an estimated 150 million minutes worth of calls home each month, and that the demographic is particularly well educated and wealthy. Red Pocket will be a prepaid service that allows its customers to directly dial international calls with no extra steps. Red Pocket will let its customers “use a cell phone like a normal person and call internationally and not lose your shirt,” Smetannikov said.
Domestic long distance is included, and international calls to countries such as China and Singapore will be charged the same per-minute price as domestic calls: 15 cents.
Red Pocket will not require credit checks on its customers. The service will run on Cingular Wireless L.L.C.’s GSM network.
The MVNO is offering two Motorola Inc. handsets, the Razr (for $200) and the C139 (for $50). Both phones will come with factory-installed Chinese menus, and customers will be able to get mobile content in Chinese, Smetannikov added.
The company is named after the traditional red envelope in which the Chinese distribute money to friends and family during New Year celebrations. The company’s logo is based on a stamp that, up until recently, Chinese citizens used in lieu of a signature, according to Smetannikov.
Red Pocket Mobile’s goal is to have about 100,000 subscribers by the end of 2008.
