Synchronica Signs on 10th African Carrier
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Royal Tunbridge Wells, Toronto, October 15, 2010. - Synchronica plc (AIM: SYNC, TSX-V: SYN), the international provider of push email, instant messaging, and social networking services, announces that it has signed a framework agreement with a pan-African operator group.
The agreement for Synchronica Mobile Gateway covers all of the operator's subsidiaries in Africa, and purchase orders have been issued worth USD 752,000 for professional services and initial licences required for a pilot launch. Synchronica expects the operator to launch Mobile Gateway shortly across all subsidiaries and expects expansion orders for further licences in due course. This is Synchronica's tenth agreement with an African carrier, this time a mobile operator group with subsidiaries across the continent.
"We are very pleased to have completed this deal", said Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica. "We look forward to a successful product rollout in Africa, and we also have the opportunity to introduce our sought-after push email, instant messaging, and social networking services across the enlarged group."
According to the study Africa Connected - A Telecommunications Growth Story from Ernst & Young, the African region is one of the fastest-growing mobile markets in the world. Historical underinvestment in telecommunications has rendered-fixed line telecommunications largely insignificant, and average mobile penetration across the continent stands at 37 percent, expected to rise to 61 percent by 2012. Demand for mobile data services in the continent will continue to gain in popularity.
Synchronica believes that in emerging markets where consumers are mostly reliant on internet cafes, the mobile phone is becoming the preferred avenue to accessing digital content. The mobile phone has become the communications lifeline in areas where legacy infrastructure is lacking. In these regions, new customers continue to sign up to mobile services in droves, and an innovative bouquet of value-added services provide a unique selling point to carriers that do not wish to compete on tariffs alone.
Mobile Gateway's extensive handset support is particularly relevant in this market as low-end mobile phones represent the vast majority of devices in use while operators are keen to extend advanced value-added services which supplement voice and SMS revenues.
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About Synchronica
Synchronica plc is a leading developer of next-generation mobile messaging solutions based on open industry standards. The award-winning product portfolio includes the flagship product Mobile Gateway, providing push email, synchronization, instant messaging (IM), backup and restore, and mobile connectivity to social networks. Synchronica's products are white-labeled and offered by mobile operators in emerging and developed markets to provide mass market messaging services, increasing data revenues and reducing churn.
Synchronica Mobile Gateway provides a unique multi-protocol gateway combining Push IMAP, SyncML, ActiveSync, Email to MMS, and Email to SMS, delivering push email and synchronization to literally any mobile phone currently in the market without requiring an additional client to be downloaded. Expanding instant messaging to mobile devices, Mobile Gateway establishes carrier-branded IM communities, using the industry standard XMPP and provides gateways to popular internet IM communities, connecting any IMPS-enabled handset.
Headquartered in England, Synchronica also maintains a development center in Germany in addition to a regional presence in the USA, Hong Kong, and Dubai. Synchronica plc is a public company traded on the AIM list of the London Stock Exchange (SYNC.L). For further information, please visit www.synchronica.com
For more information, please contact:
Nicole Meissner
Chief Operating Officer
Tel.: +44 1892 552 780
Mobile: +44 7977 256 412
Fax: +44 1892 552 721
nicole.meissner@synchronica.com
