Lukewarm take rates reported for i-mode in Europe

KPN Mobile said it has added 100,000 i-mode customers in the Netherlands and Germany this year, and is confident that 1 million customers will use the service by 2003. However, it appears KPN will not meet its aggressive previously stated year-end target of 600,000 customers.

While NTT DoCoMo has been trying to expand its wildly successful i-mode service outside of Japan, the wireless industry has questioned whether the carrier's wireless Internet service is just a Japanese phenomenon. DoCoMo supports more than 34 million customers in Japan.

KPN claimed high customer satisfaction with the service, with the most interest in downloading melodies and images and accessing news and weather information. I-mode’s email function is used by 86% of customers in the Netherlands, KPN said.

AT&T Wireless reports a 40% take rate of DoCoMo-like mMode services since launching in April, said Andre Dahan, president of the carrier's mobile multimedia services division. DoCoMo owns a 16% share of AT&T Wireless. AT&T Wireless chose to mimic the business practices associated with i-mode such as the way it compensates third-party application providers.

Meanwhile, DoCoMo shares slid in Japan amid reports that the company plans to offer a discount to frequent i-mode services. Investors fear the move could lead to discounts on other services.