More than five per cent of O2 customers use their handsets to access the mobile operator's O2 Active portal, generating around 559 million page impressions in October.

The company announced that around one million of its more than 20 million customers in Ireland, the UK and Germany accessed the portal in a 90-day period to the end of October. The O2 Active service is available to two million customers who have WAP-enabled colour handsets.

O2 is now to launch a new version of its O2 Active service. The new service will install the O2 Active menu on the handset, rather than making it available over a browser.

The content on the handset downloads automatically to the handset and is updated automatically, which means that customers will be able to access the content without waiting for the content to download.

The company is also in the trial stages with its video streaming services, which are expected to be launched commercially early in 2004. The trials will take place on a variety of Symbian handsets, including the Nokia 6600, as well as the Nokia 7650 and 3650.

Rival Vodafone said in November that its its Vodafone Live service is now used by three million-plus customers in 15 nations in Europe and Asia/Pacific. ®