Chief resigns as Vizzavi axes 100
VIZZAVI chief executive Evan Newmark resigned as the struggling mobile-phones portal business sacked 100 staff in a bid to trim its haemorrhaging losses.
The business, jointly owned by Vodafone and French media giant Vivendi Universal, said that Newmark would be leaving on 31 January to be succeeded by chief marketing officer Guy Laurence. Some of the job losses are expected to fall in London. Vizzavi employs about 200 of its 800 staff at its head office in the Strand.
Laurence was previously sales director at troubled pay television outfit ONdigital, now ITV digital, before joining Vizzavi in October 2000. The company, which develops and packages web-based content for advanced mobile phones, has struggled to find revenues because of the decline of online advertising and the slow take-up of ecommerce.
However, it stuck with its forecast of breaking even by the end of 2003. It also reported a 42% quarter-on-quarter increase in customers to 6.3m.
The two parents, which have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in the venture, have rejigged the way that they bankroll Vizzavi. They are promising it 5% of airtime revenues and 80% of premium content revenues. The cuts came as Vivendi announced plans to raise e3.3bn (£2.05bn) by selling its shares.
