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Submitted on 7 Nov 2006
Biggest Finnish online social network portal now in Russia.
IRC-Galleria - biggest Finnish online social media portal dedicated to picture sharing and meeting new acquaintances, and Laika Mobile Media present Russian version of the service under the name My-Gallery.
My-Gallery is community portal that allows internet users communicate with their existing friends as well as to find new ones. Users can create their profiles, upload up to 100 pictures, write diary and blogs, create and join different communities and clubs. VIP status allows to post private comments, upload much more pictures to big number of albums, as well as change the skin of one's profile to meet personal style and taste. Additional features of My-Gallery lets customers present their pictures in various ways to all or restricted member groups. My-Gallery wellcomes all internet users that are older than 12 and speaks Russian language.
My-Gallery is new website in Russia that is adopted from IRC-Galleria, which has almost 400.000 active users and which is one of the main youth social network services and media channels in Finland. My-Gallery is also available in Estonia, Lithuania and soon in Latvia and Ukraine.
For more information, please contact:
Tomas Piktozis
Director, Online Social Networks
ZAO Laika Mobile Media
+7903 796 21 70
tomas.piktozis@laikamedia.com
Submitted on 7 Feb 2006
Small Planet Ltd: Laika Mobile Media and Small Planet to join forces in Jippii's Russian and Baltic operations.
As of January 1st 2006, ownership of Jippii Mobile Entertainment's business operations in Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was transferred from Jippii Mobile Entertainment to Laika Mobile Media Ltd as part of a management buy-out.
To strengthen Laika Mobile's operations, a group of investors led by Small Planet Ltd, a leading provider of mobile content delivery and community products, has become a major shareholder of the company.
Jippii was the first International mobile entertainment service provider to become a market leader in Russia.
To date more than 600 000 consumers every month buy their content from Jippii. As the new owner of these operations, Laika Mobile aims to regain Jippii's position as the leading provider of direct-to-consumer mobile content by focusing purely on Russian (FSU) and Baltic markets. In addition, by utilizing Small Planet's platforms and capabilities Laika Mobile will build a business-to-business premium connectivity and white-label platform service for Russia, which is the largest mobile service market in Europe with 125 million mobile phone users (1).
Currently Laika Mobile has direct connectivity to over 30 mobile operators in Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This unique position, which has so far been in utilized only in Jippii's direct-to-consumer operations, will now also be made available for other service providers so that they can get a reliable and secure access to the one of the fastest growing mobile service markets in the world (2).
A significant partner in funding Laika Mobile has been Small Planet's majority shareholder Access Propeller Holdings, Inc. and its majority owner Nordberg Capital Inc. As a founding financial investor of FGI Wireless, the original US partner in creating Vimpelcom, Nordberg Capital has a 13-year history in the Russian mobile market.
“Laika Mobile is truly a company which is more than the sum of its parts. Jippii's established market position in Russia combined with Small Planet's unique expertise in designing and maintaining mass-market mobile services allows Laika Mobile to become the leading mobile service provider in Russia and in Baltic countries”, states Pasi Marjanen, Chief Executive Officer of Laika Mobile Media and former Vice President of Marketing for Jippii Mobile Entertainment. “Furthermore it's great to be able to provide other non-Russian companies the access to this massive market. Much of the mobile entertainment revenue in Russia is currently generated with simple SMS based services.
Premium WAP and other more advanced services are now becoming available and this is the perfect time for companies that already succeeded in more developed markets to enter Russia”, he continues.
“Small Planet has for over 8 years created highly successful mobile entertainment services for its customers on five continents and Laika Mobile provides the opportunity to put the lessons learned in good use in the most interesting mobile service market in the world”, comments Rami Korhonen, Chief Executive Officer of Small Planet.
“The operative management of Laika Mobile, which consists of senior executives of Small Planet and the former business director of Jippii's Russian and Baltic operations, is the perfect team to seize the opportunities of the Russian mobile service market”, says Rami Ryhänen, Laika Mobile's Chairman of the Board and the former Chief Executive Officer of Jippii Mobile Entertainment. Mr. Ryhänen is also one of the new investors in the company.
For more information, please contact:
Pasi Marjanen
Chief Executive Officer
Laika Mobile Media Ltd
+358 50 5500 663
pasi.marjanen@laikamedia.com
Rami Korhonen
Chief Executive Officer
Small Planet Ltd
+358 40 730 7813
rami.korhonen@smallplanet.fi
(1) Advanced Communications & Media's research: Cellular Market Data: 2005 Year-End Results
(2) The research company J'son & Partners has predicted that the Russian mobile content market will grow 56% to $530-550 million in 2006. (Russian Wireless Content Market Watch, November 2005)
