A SYSTEM DESIGNED by Pontis to help mobile operators successfully target their punters is having very concrete results. A ten per cent increase in ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is impressive in anybody's books.

As proof that its product really does work – and with something calling itself a marketing delivery platform that's a big problem - Pontis has just released a brochure.

It includes six case studies where – in order to protect the client – the actual name of the company has been removed. But the INQ has guessed that one of them is France's SFR with the Vodafone Live! Portal.

Pontis' software was utilised by SFR's staff to create 15 different offerings targeted at subscribers who'd never accessed content or were very low consumers of content.

The kinds of campaign included '50 per cent off all Java Games at Happy Hour' and 'Buy one ringtone and get one Java game free'. Tescos must wish it had thought of this stuff.

Anyway, the net results were impressive. The number of subscribers who purchased content increased by 17 per cent.

In net terms this translated to a €3 per month increase in end user revenue which equated to a 10 per cent increase in total ARPU.

Given that mobile operators are desperate to increase revenues from data as their income from voice calls declines, the INQ can see this kind of promotional activity increasing enormously. µ