Vopium expanding in Europe

The existing competition among the VoIP market has mushroomed with a large number of high profile players such as the very popular Skype as well as several other large providers including Truphone, Jajah and Fring.

This has forced the companies to reduce their call rates and update to a more user friendly service enabling users to reach their family and friends quickly and cheaply with a good quality connection.

Back in 2006, Pakistani entrepreneur Tanveer Sharif, aided by two partners, initiated another service going by the name of Vopium, making another addition to the fiercely competitive market.

Based in Copenhagen, the company offers cheap international telephony to customers without the inconvenience of changing their operator or sim card.

With the use of Vopium people travelling or living abroad can save up to 90% on voice or text communication.

It is compatible with almost 500 new mobile handsets that support various operating systems such as Symbian, Windows Mobile, Java and Blackberry.

Vopium is cheaper to call because the user pays the mobile provider for a local call and Vopium for the international add-on.

To use this service, you need to get a free software program of Vopium installed on your mobile phone.

At the moment it is only possible to use Vopium in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Spain but the company does have expansion plans.

Vopium has been tested in various countries such as France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, UK and the US.

It also aims to increase its access in parts of US and Asia.

The company has high ambitions and aims to be the sole long distance provider of its customers.

Vopium closed a venture capital financing agreement earlier this year for EUR 4.2 million (aprox $5.5 million) with the Luxembourg based investment company Enex Group SA, thus securing the necessary capital for its continued European expansion.

Vopium has a strategy of trying to give its users ease of use by make it as simple as possible to take on such tasks as monitoring their transactions, add other phones and services, and buy packages of cheap minutes.

Vopium is available in local languages, rather than the standard English, enabling people to communicate with their relatives in the same language they speak.

It can be easily selected automatically based on the language setting in your phone.

Moreover, Vopium provides various products that ensure fixed low prices for international calls, unlimited talk time to a number of countries, low price international calls form landlines, low price text messages and call back products, which empower users to make cheap calls when they are abroad.

Voice over IP has experienced a significant growth in a very small time, but it is yet to be seen if Vopium can compete with the might of such well established companies as Skype, who often record up to 10 million calls at any one moment.

To get into that kind of client numbers they will need significantly more investment capital and a more global base.