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27th July 2004 - Zi Corporation, unveiled its latest
innovations for its user-friendly eZiText® predictive
text technology to the Asian wireless industry at CommunicAsia
Exposition in Singapore last month, has won a major
new deal in China. Today, it announced that the company
has licensed its eZiText product to handset manufacturer
Nanjing Panda Mobile Communications Equipment Co., Ltd.
(PMC).
PMC is the ninth largest handset company in China and
a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nanjing Panda Electronics
Company Limited. (HKSE: 0553.HK). PMC has both design
and manufacturing capabilities and is considered one
of the fastest growing companies in the Chinese handset
market due in part to the wide reach of its parent.
In addition, Zi, a market leader in China, found CommunicAsia
an outstanding success, with visitors coming to its
see its technology innovations from all across Asia
and beyond.
PMC has licensed eZiText in English, simplified Chinese
and traditional Chinese in its GSM (Global System for
Mobile Communication) and GPRS (General Packet Radio
Service) handsets for use in strategically important
greater Chinese market including China, Hong Kong and
Taiwan.
China continues to be one of the fastest growing mobile
phone markets in the world. According to China’s
Ministry of Information Industry, one in four Chinese
are expected to have a wireless phone by the end of
2004 and, as of April, China’s total number of
mobile phone subscribers had grown to 295.8 million
subscribers, an increase of 27.1 million since January.
The total number of subscribers is expected to reach
320 million by late 2004.
PMC is expected to introduce its new GSM and GPRS handset
designs embedded with eZiText in the second half of
this year, said Yongqing Hua, Vice General Manager of
PMC.
“We consider predictive text a core requirement
for our handset designs and Zi, with its extensive Chinese
language expertise, is the innovative leader in the
field,” Hua said. “As we continue to ramp-up
our in-house design capabilities, we look forward to
working closely with Zi as a key component of our products.”
Zi’s Beijing-based regional sales director for
Asia, Kam Ching, said the agreement with PMC again demonstrates
the value of Zi’s products for China’s leading
handset manufacturers.
“PMC is a very important customer for us because
of their standing in the key Chinese market,” Ching
said. “PMC’s selection of our products is
an important endorsement of Zi’s expertise in the
Chinese language and validates our claims that our features,
including learning and personalization, are in very
high demand among mobile phone consumers.”
This news comes less than a month after Zi won the
“Best Productivity Application” for the Symbian
OS (Operating System) in the 2004 Handango Champion
Awards for its eZiTap™ Front End Processor (FEP)
predictive text technology. The Awards honor the best
in mobile software and are designed to recognize exceptional
mobile applications developed by outstanding companies.
The award judges, representing a selection of publications
with focuses on reviewing devices and applications in
the PDA, smart phone and wireless spaces, selected eZiTap
from a list of award finalists that were chosen from
thousands of applications which are sold through Handango's
website and their affiliate sites.
About Panda Mobile Communications
Panda Mobile Communications (PMC) is a wholly owned
company of Nanjing Panda Electronics Company Limited.
PMC was founded in 2002 for handset design, production
and sales of GSM and GPRS mobile phones. In addition
to handsets, PMC’s parent, Nanjing Panda Electronics
Company Limited, makes satellite and short wave equipment,
data switches and routers, TVs, consumer electronics
and appliances, computers and testing equipment. Panda
Electronics Group is a publicly traded company since
1996 and is listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong
Limited and the Shanghai Stock Exchange. For more information
visit www.pmc.net.cn or www.chinapanda.com.cn.
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