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March 1 2006

First International SMS Aggregator to Enter Local Market

Mobile 365, a large mobile messaging and data services provider, has opened an office in Johannesburg, the commercial centre of South Africa, thereby extending its reach into the booming African mobile market.

Over the past five years, mobile communication has grown faster in sub-Saharan Africa than in most parts of the world. The South African market alone has the largest growth on the continent, with a current active subscriber base of more than 26 million. South Africa is served by the three mobile operators: Cell C, MTN, and Vodacom.

Additional growth in South Africa is being fueled by the deployment of 2.5G and 3G services, as well as by the imminent enablement of Mobile Terminated (MT) billing across all mobile operators, opening up opportunities for local and global content providers.

At the same time, operators such as MTN and Vodacom are expanding into the remainder of Africa, where the GSMA—as well as network, handset, and base station providers—is finding innovative ways to connect millions of people with no other access to telephony services.

Mobile 365 is the only international aggregator to have connections to all three of South Africa's local operators. This gives Mobile 365's global operator and brand customers access to more than 26 million subscribers, and enables them to directly participate in mobile growth throughout Africa.

"We have accessed an entire continent's worth of business just by opening one office," says Howard Stevens, Mobile 365 Vice President, Sales - EMEA. "Our Johannesburg office presents a rare opportunity for our customers to gain early market share, establish and build their brands, and develop a sustainable competitive advantage in a market that is rapidly expanding."

Mobile 365's move into South Africa reinforces its leadership position in global messaging and data services, and is in keeping with the company's objective to continue to provide its customers with fresh revenue generation opportunities. With more than 120 Premium SMS connections, Mobile 365 offers the largest truly global network for the deployment of Premium services.

In January 2006, Mobile 365 deployed premium services across all local operators for its first European customer to enter South Africa.

The South African subscriber base, as in other African countries, is roughly 80% pre-paid. Premium SMS has been available across all operators for 18 months, and the market operates on five-digit short codes. Number portability is expected in early 2006, and Mobile 365's Network Query Service—launched in September 2005 as part of its billing maximisation strategy—will enable content providers to determine the home network of a given mobile subscriber, resulting in improved billing rates and reduced message sending costs.

About Mobile 365
Delivering two billion messages per month, Mobile 365 leads the world in the global delivery and settlement of mobile messaging and data services, including SMS, MMS, and WAP. With reach to more than 500 mobile operators around the world, Mobile 365 is at the forefront of mobile interoperability messaging and the distribution of premium content and value-added services. Headquartered outside of Washington, D.C., Mobile 365 has offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Milan, New Delhi, Paris, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Taipei. Major operator customers include Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, Cingular Wireless, T-Mobile, Telcel, Telefonica, O2, China Mobile, China Unicom, Hutchison, and Airtel. Major brand customers include Volvo, Sony Pictures, MSN, Citibank, Siemens, Ogilvy, Yahoo!, and Dunkin' Donuts. For more information, visit: www.mobile365.com.