bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Georgina Lee

SmarTone Telecommunications believes the allure of having David Beckham and Manchester United affiliated with its brand may be strong enough to offset the negative impact from 3G start-up costs in the next fiscal year.

Executive director Patrick Chan said adding the Vodafone name to its own to create a 'SmarTone-Vodafone' brand would have a positive financial impact in the fiscal year to July 2006.

The European mobile giant is a key sponsor of  Manchester United and its former star  Beckham, who now plays for Real Madrid.

'We will use them as a service offering to our customers, with brand promotions for Manchester United  and Ferrari programmes,' said Mr Chan.

Company executives have  said the start-up loss from 3G was  likely to weigh on its bottom line in the first few years. The company launched the service at the end of last year.

The  mobile arm of Sun Hung Kai Properties  announced it had become Vodafone's 14th partner network in December  and Mr Chan said the company would 'very soon' replace its 'SmarTone Mobile' brand name with 'SmarTone-Vodafone'.

The re-branding  is expected to be completed by the middle of  this year. Mr Chan did not explain   how Vodafone and its football  affiliation and other sponsored content would  be able to  bolster SmarTone's financials, but said it was 'not about  boosting average revenue per user or subscribers'.

In the six months to December 31, SmarTone's net profit dropped  4 per cent to $225.63 million due to higher 3G network and   subscriber acquisition costs.

Football celebrities aside, Vodafone will  bring an international brand name to  SmarTone, as the  British operator  has stakes in mobile networks  in 26 countries.

'SmarTone  can  cut  costs on wholesale roaming, as they can benefit from our roaming service agreement with third parties,' said Thomas Nowak, Vodafone's group director of partner networks.

For Vodafone, franchising its  brand to  partners will extend its own  global footprint. Through SmarTone, Vodafone's customers and partners can have seamless access to its international mobile services  in Hong Kong.

Putting David Beckham's face on its handsets helped Vodafone add four million customers worldwide in a single quarter in 2003.



SmarTone hopes to score with Beckham