MTG and NetCom invest in joint portal: everyday.com

7/14/1999 10:33 AM EST

MTG AND NETCOM INVEST IN JOINT PORTAL: EVERYDAY.COM

Modern Times Group MTG AB and NetCom AB will invest in a jointly owned company
to build a portal on the Internet.
The new company, Everyday.com, will offer unique opportunities for generating
revenue through advertising on the World Wide Web and through Internet
shopping (e-commerce).

The goal is to make the most of the strengths of each group:
MTG publishes content on the World Wide Web and commands skills and capacity
in the mass media and in marketing, through the Group's TV channels, radio
stations, and newspapers. These include TV3, RIX FM, Power Hit Radio, and the
newspapers Metro and FinansTidningen.
In addition, MTG has a special company for selling banner advertising on the
Internet, called Webad, and multiple web sites for Internet shopping, such as
WebShoppers Club, CDON, comeIN.net, and the on-line auction system
TeleAuktion.
NetCom is the leading Internet service provider (ISP) in the Nordic region,
with 718,000 Internet customers at March 31, 1999, through its subsidiary
Tele2. These subscribers will be offered Everyday.com as their starting page.
Tele2 further bolstered its position on July 1 this year by beginning to offer
Internet access with no subscription fee.
"Taken altogether, this gives Everyday.com access to the entire value chain
for transactions over the Internet. We can earn money by offering everything:
free Internet access, portals, advertising sales, content, e-commerce,
payments services, and logistics on a pan-European basis. Few companies are as
well-positioned for Internet business as we are," says Niklas Zennström,
acting president of Everyday.com.

The business concept of the new portal, Everyday.com, is to simplify everyday
life. The goal is to build the portal for the Scandinavian countries to start
with. The next country will be the Netherlands, where MTG recently began
publishing Metro and where Tele2 Europe, part of the SEC group, is established
as one of the leading telecom operators and even serves as an ISP.
MTG, through its subsidiary InTV, has produced Tele2's home page since October
1997.
"That collaboration has worked out superbly. That home page has the second
highest number of hits of all Internet sites in Sweden. So it is natural that
we go further. For us, MTG is the perfect partner, with all its know-how in
advertising sales. MTG also has broad content on the World Wide Web and
powerful capacity in marketing," says Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, CEO of NetCom.
"For us, it is important to cooperate with NetCom which, besides technical
know-how and massive capacity as an Internet service provider, has all those
subscribers, for whom we can add value," says Pelle Törnberg, CEO of MTG.
With MTG's and NetCom's joint investment in the portal company Everyday.com,
functionality will be enhanced, allowing personalized portals and local
variations.
TV-Shop Europe, owned by MTG, provides solutions for taking and delivering
orders throughout Europe for e-commerce. These will be combined with the
payments system GiSMo. Payments for purchases made over the Internet are easy
using authentication via mobile telephones.
"The entire Internet market is in a transitional phase in which the portal is
becoming central to any truly integrated Internet strategy. The winners will
be those who can offer cheap and easy-to-use access to a portal, whose content
is simple and helps each user simplify his or her everyday life. Tele2's
position as the leading Nordic ISP, along with its broad base of Nordic
telephony customers, ensures the new venture will have a leading position in
the market. In the long run, Tele2 Europe's rapidly growing customer base- now
more than 1.66 million telephony customers in six countries- also represents a
natural customer base for Everyday.com," Zennström points out.
MTG and NetCom will each own 50% of the new company.

For additional information, please contact
Pelle Törnberg, telephone +46 8 5620 0050
Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, telephone +46 8 5626 4000
Niklas Zennström, telephone +352 091 752 357

Modern Times Group MTG AB is listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's O list

(symbol: MTG) and on the Nasdaq National Market in New York (symbol: MTGNY).
NetCom AB is also listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's O list (symbol:
NCOM) and Nasdaq National Market (symbol: NECS).