Lenco Mobile Inc. Expands Internationally
Stresses Focus on Transaction-Based Business Model as Mobile Messaging Market Grows Exponentially
* Friday March 20, 2009, 2:24 pm EDT
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lenco Mobile Inc. (Pink Sheets:LNCM - News) announced today that it has opened offices outside of London and in Sydney, Australia.
Michael Levinsohn, CEO of Lenco Mobile Inc., said “With our audited profits tripling for our South African operations in 2008 and our forecasted profits for 2009 expected to at least double, we felt confident it was the right time to expand our operations. The opening of these offices is the first step in our international expansion plan. The demand for our mobile marketing solutions is such that we envisage further offices opening during the course of this year. In order to manage the risks associated with expanding internationally we have selected experienced partners in each region who have entered into licensing agreements with us. The one exception will be the United States where we are establishing our own sales and technical infrastructure.”
A new report from Portio Research focused on mobile messaging suggests that SMS will continue to be the cash cow of mobile data revenues for some time to come. Traffic volumes and revenues continue to confound predictions and are expected to keep growing throughout the global economic downturn. Indeed the whole mobile messaging industry worth $130 billion in 2008 is predicted to be worth $224 billion by 2013, 60 percent of non-voice service revenues.
Lenco Mobile Inc.’s MMS messaging platform is already in use by two of the ten largest Mobile Network Operators in the world, representing more than 162 million subscribers. Lenco Mobile Inc. is in discussions to provide its SMS and MMS messaging services to seven other Mobile Network Operators in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
“Our business is built entirely around the concept of establishing and maintaining what we call a “transactional relationship” with our customers,” said Levinsohn. “It is essential that transaction-based revenue is generated each and every time there is an interaction with the customer. If a customer downloads a SMS or MMS message, we get paid for that delivery. If there is a mobile phone based payment, we earn a fee. If there is a digital ticket or coupon delivered to a mobile phone, we get paid. If someone subscribes to our loyalty program, we earn a fee, said Levinsohn.
As mobile operators have seen the average revenue per user (ARPU) decrease, they have sought to boost revenue via new value-added services; however, the most profitable data service is still text messaging, reports In-Stat. Inexpensive, ubiquitous, reliable, and simple for the mobile customer to operate, Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Message Service (MMS) technologies provide potentially endless revenue streams for forward thinking Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), the high-tech market research firm says.
SMS will remain the most dominant mobile messaging format for most of the next decade. SMS has generated revenues of $89 billion in 2008, and the world has seen traffic of almost 3.5 trillion SMS messages in 2008. Forecasts predict that SMS will become a $100 billion business by 2010, and worldwide total traffic will reach almost 5 trillion messages in FY 2011, and growth will continue from there. MMS is still the second highest revenue generating non-voice mobile service in the world. In 2009, MMS will generate $31 billion worldwide.
“SMS may be a basic, cheap technology, but it still has much life as a MNO cash cow,” says Frank Dickson, In-Stat analyst. “The keys to SMS profitability are its ease-of-use, inexpensive price tag, global reach, and increased reliability as infrastructure development increases in more rural global regions. In developed areas, however, it has become increasingly important for mobile operators to find ways to enhance and personalize the SMS service offering.”
About Lenco Mobile Inc.
Lenco Mobile Inc. owns and operates business focused on the high growth mobile marketing and Internet sectors. Its subsidiary Multimedia Solutions, based in South Africa, provides MMS message solutions to mobile network operators and brand owners using its proprietary Flight Deck platform. Multimedia Solutions is a service provider to the two largest Mobile Network Operators in Africa and is expanding internationally by offering its products and services in to other mobile phone networks in Europe, the Middle East, Australia and Asia.
Lenco Mobile Inc. also owns Digital Vouchers, CellCard and the recently acquired Lenco USA. Digital Vouchers is a mobile phone and Internet marketing platform which enables brand owners to extend offers to consumers which can then be redeemed via mobile phones at point of sale in a retail outlet. CellCard provides brand owners with the ability to download mobile content such as a video clip to a mobile phone and also provides a mobile payment platform which can be used to pay for goods and services, either person to person or person to business. Lenco USA provides online performance marketing services to its client base. Lenco USA also owns the AdMaximizer Internet publishing and lead generation platform which enables clients to accurately measure the performance of their online advertising campaigns. AdMaximizer also has sophisticated fraud detection and prevention tools which are used by clients to measure and manage risk in the online environment. By identifying key components of the value chain in the mobile marketing sector, such as SMS and MMS services, mobile content, mobile technology, payment solutions and related electronic distribution platforms Lenco Mobile Inc. is able to offer brand owners a comprehensive platform on which all of their mobile marketing needs can be met.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This press release contains forward-looking statements, including expected industry patterns and other financial and business results that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from results expressed or implied by this press release. Such risk factors include, among others: the sustainability of recent growth rates in the digital marketing industry, grow as anticipated; the positioning of Lenco Mobile Inc. products in the market; ability to integrate acquired companies and technology; ability to retain key employees; ability to successfully combine product offerings and customer acceptance of combined products; general market conditions, fluctuations in currency exchange rates, changes to operating systems and product strategy by vendors of operating systems; and whether Lenco Mobile Inc. can successfully develop new products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements in this press release. Neither Lenco Mobile Inc. nor any company mentioned in this release undertake any obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes to future operating results.
Contact:
Lenco Mobile Inc.
Corporate Inquiries:
Michael Levinsohn
CEO and President
949-554-5505
michael.levinsohn@lencomobile.com
www.lencomobile.com
