Contract win in Africa

RNS Number : 4991C

Synchronica PLC

02 September 2008

 



2 September 2008

Synchronica PLC

('Synchronica' or 'the Company')

Synchronica Wins Key Contract for Push Email with Mobile Operator in Africa

Agreement is third deal in three months, increasing Synchronica's footprint in the fastest growing mobile markets

Synchronica plc (AIM: SYNC), the mobile e-mail and synchronisation specialist, is pleased to announce a licensing agreement with a subsidiary of a leading Asian-African mobile operator group ("Operator") for its award-winning push e-mail and synchronisation software Mobile Gateway, making mobile email available on regular mass-market handsets. This is Synchronica's first contract with this operator group.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Operator places an initial purchase order for 250,000 user licences with an upfront licence fee of US $400,000. Upon acceptance, a further US $22,000 will be paid for professional services and US $72,000 will be paid per annum for support of the product. The Nigerian operator aims to launch Mobile Gateway in September 2008 offering mass-market push e-mail and synchronisation solutions for business and consumer users. 

This agreement strengthens Synchronica's presence in the rapidly emerging pan-African markets. In October 2006, Synchronica announced a similar contract with a subsidiary of another pan-African mobile operator group. So far in 2008, the Company has signed three agreements which target emerging markets including the contracts announced in June and July with a leading Chinese handset manufacturer and Emircom, one of the top five UAE-headquartered IT/telecoms systems integrators.

In emerging markets, limited broadband infrastructure and relatively low PC penetration is increasing use of mobile phones to access the Internet and forecasts point to these markets as a breakthrough area for mass-market mobile e-mail. Nigeria is Africa's largest telecommunication market with 47 million active subscribers and saw a 38 per cent year-on-year growth in new mobile subscribers during 2006*. According to Informa's 'Middle East and Africa Mobile Opportunities and Forecast - 2007' report, the region is the fastest growing mobile market in the world. Informa predicts that there will be 4.81 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012, with the next billion subscribers coming from emerging regions. A report by Juniper Research (12 July 2008) projects that mobile revenues in the Middle East and Africa are set to reach $107 billion per annum by 2013, with data services expected to make up 24 per cent of billed service revenue, compared to nine per cent today. 

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica plc, said: "We are delighted to sign another leading mobile operator in Africa, where carriers have a unique opportunity to make the mobile phone the primary device for accessing the Internet. This agreement increases our footprint in the region and is an endorsement of both our cutting-edge technology and a further validation of our strategy to focus on the exceptional opportunity for mobile e-mail in emerging markets. Synchronica is well positioned to take advantage of this rapidly growing market, which holds great potential for increased revenue streams. With the recently announced acquisition of AxisMobile, we will further improve our competitive advantage in emerging markets by expanding the range of supported devices to even the most basic handsets."

*Data from Light Reading, March 2007 (statistics show growth between Dec '05 and Dec '06). Other countries that feature in Light Reading's Top Ten Emerging Mobile Markets report include: Pakistan (up 147% to 48.3 million) and Bangladesh (up 135% to 21.8m). This Day / Click Afrique, 07.04.2008, "Nigeria Maintains Lead in Africa", by Efem Nkanga.

Enquiries:

Synchronica plc	Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO, Angus Dent, CFO,  Nicole Meissner, CMO,	[phone] [phone] [phone]
Corfin Communications	Harry Chathli, William Cullum, Alexis Gore	[phone]
FinnCap	Charles Cunningham, Geoff Nash	[phone]

About Mobile Gateway

Synchronica's Mobile Gateway provides carrier-grade push email and synchronisation services for the vast majority of mass market feature phones and Smartphones being used by subscribers today. Based on the dominant open industry standards Push IMAP (LEMONADE) for mobile email and SyncML (OMA DS) for contact and calendar synchronisation, it works with the built-in Email and synchronization clients found in more than 1.5 billion phones. Serving consumers and prosumers, Mobile Gateway includes back-end support for POP3 and IMAP mailboxes, connecting to popular services such as AOL or Google Mail. For business users, it provides a unique zero footprint architecture where users simply register their devices and instantly start to receive corporate email on their phone without requiring additional connectors behind the firewall. Business mailboxes supported include Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Sun Communications Suite.

About Synchronica

Synchronica plc develops and markets industry standard mobile email and synchronisation solutions for the vast majority of devices in the market today. Mobile operators, device manufacturers and service providers in emerging and developed markets use Synchronica products to offer mobile email and synchronisation services to their consumer and corporate customer base. Products include the push email and synchronization solution Mobile Gateway and the mass-market device backup solution Mobile Backup. Headquartered in the UK with a development centre in Germany and a presence in Hong Kong, Dubai and U.S. Synchronica plc is a public company traded on the AIM list of the London Stock Exchange (SYNC.LN). More information is available at www.synchronica.com.

 

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