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Vodafone Germany Introduces
Custom Mobile Phone for the Elderly
By Benedikt Kammel, Bloomberg News & Commentary
July 5, 2004
Vodafone Group Plc, which runs Germany's second-largest wireless network, introduced a phone equipped with only three keys that it is selling to elderly or sick people who feel overburdened by normal handsets.
The phone, produced by Switzerland-based Mobi-Click AG, lets subscribers connect to a service center where they can store information such as their doctor's contact number or details on chronic illnesses. Users can also choose two external phone numbers that they dial by pressing one of the buttons.
``Many people find modern mobile phones too complicated,'' Vodafone said in an e-mailed release. While outgoing calls are restricted to the two numbers and the service center, the phone receives incoming calls like any other cell phone, Vodafone said.
Vodafone, which trails T-Mobile International AG in Germany, is trying to sell more phones to people that are 50 years and older as the life expectancy in Europe's largest economy rises while birth rates drop and mobile-phone ownership among young customers reaches a saturation point.
The median age of the 82 million people in Germany is 41.7, exceeding a 36-year-old median in the U.S. Also, Germany's death rate is higher than its birth rate, signaling an aging population, according to the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. Vodafone Germany said its oldest customer, Liese-Lotte Hummel from Frankfurt, is 100.
The Mobi-Click phone sells for 129 euros ($159) with a two- year contract that costs 25 euros to sign up and 25 euros a month in charges for use of the service center and 50 minutes of calling time. The phone, being sold at select Vodafone shops, works with a normal wireless card that fits into the back of the handset.
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