MessagePhone in Latin America

By Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica

Which operators in emerging markets are showing an interest in MessagePhone?

In February 2010, Synchronica announced that a Latin American subsidiary of one of the largest worldwide operator groups in emerging markets had placed an initial purchase order for 20,000 MessagePhone low-cost mobile devices.

Prior to this, an African mobile operator had also placed an order for MessagePhone and has launched in May. Approximately ten additional mobile operators, all in emerging markets, are evaluating the MessagePhone.

In Latin America, there is interest from mobile operators to increase their data revenue. How does MessagePhone help them?

MessagePhone is a low-TCO (total cost of ownership) integrated device and service solution that delivers smartphone-like functionality and messaging services at a fraction of the price of alternatives.

MessagePhone enables operators in emerging markets to bring mobile data services to the mass market and to combat churn - at a retail price that starts at around USD 99.

As a white label solution, both the handsets and the mobile messaging platform (powered by Synchronica Mobile Gateway) can be branded and customized to meet an operator's requirements, providing a clear differentiation from competitor's offerings.

The bundled services empower the operator to own the relationship with the end-user and create stickiness. Because the solution is powered by Mobile Gateway, carriers are also able to offer the same messaging service to other devices used by their subscribers.

Nokia, LG, Samsung also want to lower the cost of the smartphone; how does this help or affect MessagePhone?

We believe we have a winning proposition for operators in emerging markets because MessagePhone has been designed from the ground up to meet the specific requirements of customers and mobile operators in these regions.

MessagePhone's highly competitive pricing certainly singles it out from the competition, but so does the fact that it's a white-labeled turnkey solution that includes optimized handsets, as well as a wealth of standards-based messaging services, such as hosted push email, synchronization (calendar, contacts, and tasks), social networking, and instant messaging.

Nokia and other premium brands want to control the messaging portfolio and own the user relationship. Their solutions are proprietary and device-dependent and are putting the carriers at risk of being reduced to a dumb bit pipe as they have nothing else to offer than data transmission.

With MessagePhone, we are putting the carrier back in control of its value-added service portfolio and provide a standards-based, device-neutral messaging solution which carriers can also offer for other devices.

Which Latin American operators show interest in MessagePhone?

MessagePhone has just been launched by the first operator in the Latin American region. We can confirm that the carrier is a subsidiary of one of the region's largest mobile operator groups.

The carrier offers MessagePhone services to its subscribers at a monthly charge that starts just under USD 15 for mobile push email, web browsing, and instant messaging.

How many units of MessagePhone were sold until to date in Latin America?

In the Latin American region, we have received an initial order of 20,000 units.

Under which operating system operates the telephone? Is it adapted to Symbian, Android, or another development?

MessagePhone uses the Nucleus operating system (OS) with Mediatek chipsets; however, what is important is not the OS, but rather the fact that both models support via Mobile Gateway industry-standard messaging protocols for email (IMAP / SMTP), push email (OMA EMN), instant messaging (IMPS), and contact and calendar synchronization (SyncML / OMA DS), allowing operators to extend the service to users of any device running any operating system.

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). For further information, please visit www.synchronica.com

For more information, please contact:

David Clark
Tel.: +44 1892 5527 20
Fax: +44 1892 5527 21
david.clark@synchronica.com