U.S. Mobile Startup Goes Big in China
Monday December 3, 12:00 pm ET
Berggi Enters Strategic Partnership With SINA -- China's Largest Online Media Company -- to Provide Ad-Supported Mobile Applications for Burgeoning Chinese Market
BEIJING and PALO ALTO, CA and MADRID, SPAIN--(MARKET WIRE)--Dec 3, 2007 -- Berggi today announced that it has entered into a three-year strategic partnership with SINA Corporation (NasdaqGS:SINA - News) -- China's largest online media company -- to jointly develop and market consumer mobile portal services in China. The partnership -- as part of the SINAGo mobile initiative -- comes at the close of a stunning first year for Berggi, which has already amassed close to 2,000,000 registered users for it mobile services worldwide since April, and is adding more than 15,000 new users a day.
The partnership aims to develop and deploy ad-supported mobile services -- beginning with mobile email -- to the Chinese consumer mobile market. China is the largest mobile phone market in the world and the number of mobile subscribers is projected to reach 600 million by 2010. China is already the world's second largest market for Web usage. The first service developed under the partnership agreement -- a mobile email service -- will launch later this month.
"There were many things that attracted us to select Berggi as a strategic partner -- its flexible partnership business model, its commitment to China, its singular focus on making simple mobile consumer products, its extensive mobile technology platform, and, of course, its impressive global user growth," said Ms. Zhao Tian, Deputy Editor in Chief of SINA and head of the SINAGo initiative and SINA WAP Department.
"China is key for Berggi's global strategy," said Babur Ozden, CEO of Berggi. "As one of China's biggest Web portals and most successful online media companies -- with a keen insight into mobility -- SINA is the perfect partner for us."
To service the SINA relationship and other market and product innovation opportunities in China, Berggi is opening its Beijing office. Also, last week Berggi moved its global headquarters from Houston, Texas to Silicon Valley to build a global center for product marketing and product management for a series of new mobile services and solutions.
"This has been a tremendous year for Berggi, which has quickly expanded into a number of global territories," said Ozden. "With the SINA partnership, we now have a window into one of the world's largest and most vibrant markets. It will not only expand our market, but also improve our ability to continuously serve the market with cutting-edge consumer applications."