Airtel Africa launches Mobile Messaging Service

RNS Number : 9511I

Synchronica PLC

23 June 2011

 



23 June 2011

Synchronica plc

Airtel Africa Launches Synchronica-Powered Mobile Messaging Service 'airtel connect' in 16 countries

Highlights:

·     Airtel Africa has deployed the mass-market 'airtel connect' mobile messagingservice, based on Synchronica Mobile Gateway, in 16 countries

·     The launch delivers on the group-wide framework agreement between Airtel and Synchronica

·     Synchronica has worked closely with Airtel to ensure group-wide roll-out of the Airtel-branded service met Airtel's deadlines

·     'airtel connect' is a flat-rate mobile messaging service that enables mass-market push email, instant messaging, and social networking on mass-market phones

Bharti Airtel ('Airtel'), a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa, has successfully deployed its mass-market mobile messaging service, based on Synchronica's Mobile Gateway infrastructure software, in 16 countries in Africa territories. The service, marketed as 'airtel connect', combines push email, synchronization, instant messaging and social networking in a single platform and is offered at an affordable, flat-rate, monthly charge.

The group-wide launch is the culmination of a group-wide framework agreement between Airtel Africa and Synchronica.

Airtel Ghana will be the first operator to launch 'airtel connect' which will offer a consumer-focused mobile messaging service which combines push email, synchronization, instant messaging and social networking in a single platform on a fixed monthly rental of GHC3 (US$1.99) for unlimited use, and will be available to any Airtel mobile customer, regardless of the type of mobile device they own.

Airtel has embarked on a major print and radio advertising campaign to promote airtel connect. As an incentive, customers will be offered the chance to take advantage of a free 30-day trial.

"Synchronica has proven itself to be the ideal mobile messaging partner for us," said Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Africa. "Since we chose to work with Synchronica, they have met all of our development, integration and deployment milestones. With 'airtel connect' we can offer all of our customers, regardless of which mobile device they use, a user-friendly way of connecting to their favourite email, IM and social networking services."

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, adds: "Airtel shares our view that forward-thinking operators need to introduce addictive data services that can be enjoyed by the mass market, not just those who own a high-end Smartphone. Our solution will help Airtel not only to increase ARPU but also to combat churn."

Synchronica's Mobile Gateway, on which 'airtel connect' is based, provides 100% device compatibility by using the built-in messaging clients found in a wide range of Smart Phones and Feature Phones, in addition to the MMS and SMS technologies for basic handsets.

Already licensed by more than 80 mobile operators worldwide, Synchronica's messaging platform is simple and cost-effective to deploy in the operator data center, or hosted by Synchronica, and allows operators to offer a comprehensive next-generation messaging service which works on any handset in use today. The launch of airtel connect follows Airtel's recent success at the Ghana Telecoms Awards where the company won awards in the best customer care company, the best marketing campaign, and CEO of the year categories.

Enquiries:

Synchronica plc	Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO	[phone]
www.synchronica.com	Angus Dent, CFO	[phone]
	Nicole Meissner, COO	[phone]
Northland Capital Partners
(Nominated Adviser)	Shane Gallwey/Rod Venables	[phone]
(Corporate Broker)	Katie Shelton	[phone]
Walbrook PR Limited		[phone]
(media enquiries)	Paul McManus	[e-mail]
(investor enquiries)	Paul Cornelius	[e-mail]

About Bharti Airtel Limited

Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. The company offers mobile voice & data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national & international long distance services to carriers. Bharti Airtel has been ranked among the six best performing technology companies in the world by BusinessWeek. Bharti Airtel had over 226 million customers across its operations at the end of May 2011. To learn more about Bharti Airtel please visit www.airtel.com 

About Synchronica

Synchronica plc is a leading developer of next-generation mobile messaging solutions. Mobile Gateway, Synchronica's flagship product, provides push email, synchronization, instant messaging (IM), and social networking services to any mobile phone currently in use. Synchronica's patented transcoding engine uses advanced streaming to download email attachments and can dramatically reduce the consumption of network bandwidth by as much as 90 percent.

Mobile operators and device manufacturers from emerging and developed markets rely on Synchronica's white-labelled product for providing mass market messaging services across the entire customer base, diversifying revenues and reducing churn.

Headquartered in England, Synchronica also maintains a development center in Germany and the Philippines in addition to a regional presence in Canada, the USA, Hong Kong, Spain, and Dubai. Synchronica plc is a public company traded on the AIM list of the London Stock Exchange (SYNC) and the Venture Exchange of the Toronto Stock Exchange (SYN). For further information, please visit www.synchronica.com 

 

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