DATAWAVE OPENS U.S. OFFICE
By Adnews Staff
DataWave Vending of Vancouver, a firm that sells prepaid phone cards though vending machines, opened a U.S. head office earlier this month to be closer to the markets where it makes 90% of its sales. The company expects to see sales climb this year as the result of an agreement with MCI Telecommunications Corp. The new U.S. office is in San Francisco, where sales are highest. DataWave will also have representatives in Texas, New York, Minnesota and Florida. John Plauché has taken the post of sales and marketing vice-president of the U.S. division. In Canada the vending machines are in use only in Vancouver. When the company went into business in August, 1994 its machines were configured to sell consumer products through credit card transactions. The only product DataWave ever sold this way was the Kodak disposable camera. At the end of 1995 DataWave shut down the consumer goods vending operation because management decided there was a bigger market in phone cards. LBDS Worldcom, fourth largest phone company in the U.S., had been providing long distance service for DataWave. However, the company recently signed a deal to buy long-distance minutes from MCI, the second largest phone company in the U.S. Now DataWave is preparing to move to larger premises in Vancouver on April 1 because it will more than double its current staff to handle the extra business it expects to generate through the MCI deal. Advertising for DataWave is done in-house. The Howard Group of Calgary handles investor and public relations.