CTIA: Qpass marks customer, financial milestones

SAN FRANCISCO--

Mobile services management platform provider Qpass announced two customer deals here at the CTIA’s Wireless IT & Entertainment show, and noted a significant financial milestone involving its software and the overall mobile applications market.

Cingular Wireless, which has been using the Qpass Prosperity Series platform to support its DirectBill service for more than three years, is extending its use of the platform to manage the transaction of premium messaging services, said Steve Shivers, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Qpass. Cingular, of course, is in the final stages of acquiring AT&T Wireless, another Qpass customer. Shivers said that fact will be an advantage in what is likely to be a complex integration of networks and operations for those two companies.

"We’re the services management platform for both, which will make the integration of that much easier," Shivers said. "We’ll be one of the most efficient pieces of their infrastructure to integrate, so they’ll be very rapidly able to offer premium services on a combined basis."

Qpass also announced that Boost Mobile, the youth-focused mobile unit of Nextel Communications, has begun using the Qpass platform to support the data applications that comprise its Boost LIVE service.

Qpass also noted that in the month of September, more than $20 million in premium services revenue passed through the Qpass Prosperity Series platform, a substantial increase over previous months and an indication of how quickly the premium mobile services market is expanding.

"It’s getting to be big business for the carriers," Shivers said, adding that he thinks the corresponding dollar figure will be $75 million for Q4 of this year and could exceed an annual figure of $1 billion in 2005. He said he attributes the growth to more appealing applications, improved network coverage and better market positioning of applications by carriers.

"Carriers are making it easier to find applications and buy them," Shivers said. "They’re making it really frictionless."