Thursday, February 08, 2007

Helio

I get to rarely write about the company I work for, in fear of sharing information I shouldn't, but I wanted to share some of the accomplishments that we released to the press yesterday. I'm very proud of what we have achieved, and it is clear we've quickly come into the life and minds of many people in the US and all of this within our first 9 months of launching the company.

If you don't know, I work for Helio, a new mobile carrier focused on delivering a wireless experience that is geared for the data centric web generation. Although I'm sure my marketing people wouldn't approve that description. I run the Platform Engineering team and have touched nearly every aspect of every service Helio has brought to market. As Jacki and Darian can attest we live and breathe Helio, I work long hours, Jacki gets tattoos :-), and Darian is our "man on the street" peddling the goods to the kids in school. And of course I get to write this as I'm on the other side of the globe working at one our parent companies, SK Telecom, in Korea.

Here are highlights from our most recent press release.

Helio's Subscribers

  • Launched 3 devices (Hero, Kickflip, Drift)
  • Expect to surpass 100,000 subscribers in early Q2
  • Average mobile bill is over $100 a month
Multiple Industry Firsts
  • Myspace Mobile
  • GPS-enabled Google Maps
  • Buddy Beacon
  • Gifting and Begging
Subscriber Statistics
  • 25% of ARPU (average revenue per user) from data services. This is approximately $25, and is 2-3 times the industry average
  • MySpace Mobile is used by over 70% of subscribers
  • WAP usage by over 85% of our users (this is the mobile web for those of you that don't know what WAP is)
  • Over 80% of our subscribers with GPS enabled devices have downloaded Google Maps
  • Approximately 70% of our subscribers with GPS enabled devices have downloaded Buddy Beacon
  • And the typical Helio subscriber sends over 400 SMS messages a month
So what does all of that mean? It means the stuff we have been working on is getting used by our subscribers more than we could have ever imagined. We are setting industry records and exceeding all statistics the industry had come to accept. It shows that the people who are Helio's customers are consuming every aspect of our service in every way possible. This is what we had hoped for but we didn't expect this level of enthusiasm so early into our company's existence. Whatever we are doing is resonating with our customers.

This is only the beginning and our future looks very promising. Of course I know what we have coming in the future and all I can say is you have no idea how cool the next 9 months are going to be.

At this point I must give thanks to Jacki and Darian for supporting me on this crazy ride out here in LA. I couldn't have done this without you.

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