The alliance includes both business and capital commitments.
The alliance is to be realized by the effective combination of NEC’s mobile infrastructure solutions including servers, and CYBIRD’s mobile contents planning/developing capabilities, which have proven to be the top supplier in Japanese Internet-accessible mobile phone market. The alliance will be able to bring the most sophisticated mobile Internet applications and consultations to mobile carriers such as contents providing businesses, ground positioning services and highly advanced mobile services with 3rd generation infrastructure. Both companies hope to create business opportunities in the international mobile Internet market through the alliance.
Based on the first business agreement signed in April 2001, NEC and CYBIRD have started to activate their joint business in Korea, where Broadband and Mobile industry are in great progress, targeting current 2nd Generation (2G) and 3rd Generation (3G) mobile market.
In May this year, NEC has acquired 50 % of capital stock (40,000 stocks) from CYBIRD KOREA Co., Ltd. to reinforce the business relationship. CYBIRD KOREA later issued an additional 40,000 capital stocks which are acquired by SK Telecom Co., Ltd., a largest mobile operator in Korea holding around 14 million subscribers. These series of acquisition activities have firmly established the cooperation among NEC, CYBIRD and SK Telecom in Korea. Under this cooperative structure, CYBIRD KOREA will offer new type of mobile contents services in August 2001, which are originally designed for Korean market. In the future, further development of new original contents/services will be jointly introduced by NEC/CYBIRD and ultimately deployed to other countries.
The alliance with CYBIRD is positioned at an important part of NEC’s mobile infrastructure total solution business, said Dr Junji Namiki, General Manager of Strategic Marketing Division, Network Solutions Operations Unit at NEC. With the capabilities of CYBIRD, NEC will be able to implement sophisticated 2G and 3G mobile internet applications and systems such as ground positioning-related services, and will eventually widen our presence in the mobile infrastructure business in Asian countries such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as the European market.
Mr. Soon-Yong Kwon, senior manager of SK Telecom said We expect CYBIRD to contribute to the improvement of Korean contents in terms of both quality and quantity, and to position itself as a powerful mobile contents aggregator. With this alliance with NEC, we also expect development of new services created through NEC’s technical capability.
Mr. Hori, President & CEO of CYBIRD Co., Ltd., said With this business and capital alliance for Korean contents business, CYBIRD will aim at gaining the absolute position in the Korean market through CYBIRD KOREA by combining NEC’s total mobile solutions and brand power with CYBIRD’s expertise in mobile Internet business, such as GPS services for SK Telecom as the first step of the alliance.
