Airwide Releases Global Mobile Messaging Barometer for 2008

Highlights Growth Opportunities In Emerging and Mature Markets Worldwide

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA, Spain — 12 February 2008 — Airwide® Solutions, the leading provider of next-generation mobile messaging and mobile internet infrastructure, applications and solutions, today announced its Global Mobile Messaging Barometer for 2008, designed to identify ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ in some of the most interesting and active regions around the world, focusing on Africa, Asia, Europe, The Middle East and The Americas.

Asia continues to demonstrate the strongest overall growth opportunity. With hundreds of millions of potential customers, the region represents an unprecedented opportunity for mobile communications to grow. However, ARPU remains low as does the per-minute cost of calls and services. This leaves operators in a quandary over where to concentrate their efforts, either with wealthy portions of the population which requires investment in costly add on services, or with rural populations which won’t boost ARPU in the near future but if reached would generate a large revenue opportunity.

Key findings of the report show that the Middle East illustrates the greatest potential for growth of emerging services such as mobile IM, email, videoconferencing and MMS. Based on the Airwide findings, the UAE looks set to embrace emerging services at a rapid rate. For instance, by 2013 mobile email will be almost as popular as SMS, while mobile TV and advertising, content download and mobile inventory are also likely to scoop a significant share of the available market.

The Airwide Barometer not only focuses on regions, but also measures the current and future popularity of mobile communications methods and issues within selected countries. For example, mobile spam has been identified as a hot issue in China and will continue as such over the next five years. Similarly the threat of mobile viruses also looks set to increase.

The findings from the research on Europe show that mobile email, mobile music and MMS are more ingrained services than many places in the world and there is growing confidence amongst operators that these services can provide a steady and sustained growth in revenues. For example, in the United Kingdom, accelerated growth is expected in mobile versions of applications that are already firmly established while deskbound and therefore mobile email is expected to double its share of the total market over the next five years while mobile web browsing is expected to quadruple its share.

While it is somewhat difficult to group the diverse and varied wireless markets of North, Central and South under one heading of The Americas, overall, Airwide has identified many and varied growth opportunities across the region although the opportunities are highly country-specific.

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Note:

This press release contains forward-looking statements which relate to expectations or forecasts of future events. You can identify these statements by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They use words such as "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "project," "intend," "plan," "believe," and other words and terms of similar meaning in connection with a discussion of potential future events, circumstances or future operating or financial performance. In particular, these include statements relating to future actions, prospective products or product approvals, future performance or results of current and anticipated products, sales efforts, expenses, the outcome of contingencies such as legal proceedings, and financial results.
Airwide's expectations are based on desk research and recent figures of mobile penetration, subscriber numbers, past peaks, growth rates and average daily mobile messaging volumes.

About Airwide Solutions

Airwide Solutions is the leading provider of next-generation mobile messaging and wireless internet infrastructure, applications and solutions. Its products help more than 120 wireless operators worldwide drive mobile messaging usage and revenues and enables them to leverage multiple delivery channels and next-generation infrastructure in new and more powerful ways. With a history of industry firsts – including the first text message ever sent, the introduction of the first SMS router, the first A2P MMS push gateway and mobile service control which enables mobile context, personalization and profiling – the company continues to pioneer new technologies. Airwide’s open, tiered Fusion architecture offers mobile operators advanced revenue options, a practical pathway to Mobile Messaging 2.0 and a foundation to bridge mobile messaging and mobile internet.

Airwide Solutions operates globally with offices in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and Africa. For more information about Airwide Solutions, please visit www.airwidesolutions.com.

For further information please contact:
Brenda Suarez
Airwide Solutions
Email: brenda.suarez@airwidesolutions.com
Tel: 781-229-2406 xt. 2731

Elena Dunn
Skywrite Communications
Email: airwide@skywritecomms.com
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7608 4646