Push to Talk for India

fastmobile has signed a contract for marketing, sales and operations in India. This agreement with Hutchison Essar, which offers cellular service under the 'Hutch' and 'Orange' brands to over 5 million users in India, is bringing fastchat's Push to Talk solution to India's GSM-GPRS networks.

Planned for nationwide launch this quarter on a range of handsets including the Nokia 6600 Smartphone and an embedded handset from a soon to be announced partner, fastmobile's fastchat instant communications service gives mobile phones the combined power of push2talk (aka voice instant messaging) and multimedia communications. Driven by a presence based contact list, fastchat seamlessly integrates these messaging mediums into a powerfully simple service that also links the mobile and PC worlds via Instant Messaging and email.

Adam Sewall, SVP of fastmobile, said: "Bringing fastchat to one of the world's fastest growing mobile phone market represents a significant step for the company. We're very pleased to achieve this milestone with our partner Hutchison Essar. Hutch is one of the leading brand names in India and also has the vision of expanded VAS to both its consumer and enterprise customers." Sewall added: "The value fastchat offers carriers goes beyond just fuelling an increase in person-to-person interactions. fastchat extends its "push-to" experience to provide consumers instant access to request and share personalized Internet-based content such as enterprise applications, games, simple entertainment and information, all driving carriers' revenues." He also stated: "it has been recently noted that the Indian market is achieving one of the highest growth rates of any wireless marketplaces in the world. Subscriber numbers are expected to increase in 2004 by 96% from last years net adds. This bodes well for the market penetration that we are also looking to achieve with Hutchison Essar as our partner in India."

The commercial contract includes jointly agreed commitment goals as well as an undisclosed sum of marketing and promotional investment committed by Hutchison Essar upon the launch of fastchat nationwide."

Posted to the site on 23rd April 2004