A New 'Blue Ocean' Has Been Created
SHANGHAI, China, Jan. 1 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Spreadtrum (Spreadtrum
Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD)), Amoi (Amoi Electronics Co., Ltd
(stock code: 600057)) and Kuro (Beijing Kuro Times Tech. Co., Ltd.), today
jointly announced China's first solution for music phones offering
copyrighted music, as Amoi unveiled its new music phones, A616 and A636 in
the beginning of the new year. This solution is specifically designed for
the growing mobile music market, and not only brings high quality copyright
protected music to Chinese mobile handset users, but also pushes domestic
music phones' industrial chain to the convergence of the '4Cs' --
Communication, Chip, Content and Copyright.
With mobile music growing in popularity, music optimized phones are
becoming favored by consumers as the main carrier of the mobile music.
Nevertheless, continued poor quality of video and audio, copyright
restriction of video resources, and lack of music choices have been a
limitation to the quick growth of mobile music phones. To date, there are
few choices of copyrighted music services at a reasonable price in the
Chinese consumer market. Meanwhile, chipset makers, handset manufacturers,
and mobile music carriers look to combine music playback functions with
high quality sound and large music storage to bring the consumers richer
music experiences.
Kuro ( http://www.Kuro.cn ) is a music service provider legally
authorized by most record companies for millions of online copyrighted
songs, providing high quality music download services. Through the
cooperation announced today, Spreadtrum has embedded Kuro's services into
its chipset platform, so that the mobile phones equipped with Spreadtrum's
chips can enable the functions of a multimedia player and online music
download services. As one of China's leading handset manufacturers, Amoi
firstly deployed this combination of new functions and download service,
and plans to launch its new music phone in the near future. Consistent with
its research concept "To be the pioneer of application, to be delicate as
much as we can" Amoi's music phone enables consumers to listen to and
download copyrighted music. At the same time, it is a karaoke music phone
with high quality original music and celebrity photographs. With the
portable music, people can learn to sing songs and become a karaoke singer
in a very short time.
Dr. Ping Wu, President and CEO of Spreadtrum, said, "We are very
delighted about this cooperation. As one of China's leading wireless
baseband chipset providers, Spreadtrum is devoted to the evolution of the
wireless communication and multimedia handsets. Spreadtrum's product range
includes baseband chipsets for 2G, 2.5G, 3G and 3.5G handsets, specialized
software, handset development platform, and AVS audio/video decoder chips.
Embedding Kuro's music copyright protection technology into Spreadtrum's
SC6600R platform, a high quality multimedia baseband chipset, the Amoi's
mobile phones using Spreadtrum's solution should be able to satisfy
consumers' varied but growing levels of demand for copyrighted music. We
believe this solution enhances the performance and competitiveness of
China's domestic music phones."
Huang Aiping, the vice president of Amoi, pointed out that: "As a
leading domestic handset manufacturer, Amoi aims to be an outstanding
provider for the music market segment of handsets. It always stands in the
front line of the tide of music handsets. From monosyllabic times to the
polyphonic era, Amoi has developed a series of products focusing on the
consumer's growing demands, and strives to introduce outstanding products
which can bring richer musical experiences to consumers."
The president of iPeer Multimedia International Ltd., Zheng Qicheng,
indicated that, "Beijing Kuro Times Tech. Co., Ltd. is the partner of iPeer
Multimedia International Ltd. in China. It has the current leading platform
for domestic online digital music services. Kuro has not only pushed the
development of digital music by linking the industry together, but also
strives to cross different areas, launching innovative services that
integrate original music, star pictorials, and karaoke with verbatim
lyrics, using Spreadtrum and Amoi features. Kuro also believes it
strengthens the additional value of Amoi handsets through the enabling of
intelligent song recommendations and community links. In the future,
besides music-based handsets, the products with 'Kuro Inside' service are
expected to include MP3, MPEG4, digital photo frames, U-disk, PC, notebooks
and other consumer devices. We hope to bring a better quality of service
and provide a new mode to all the Chinese hardware manufacturers, providing
these partners with more competitive edges and product values."
Features of Solution Offered to Music Phones
-- Millions of Copyrighted Songs
Keeping risk of illegality and virus infection at bay.
-- High Quality, Original Music, Diverse Selection of Celebrity
Photographs
Major record companies to provide the original audio files with
photographs of celebrities. Supports three-in-one function -- integrating
audio files, pictures and lyrics simultaneously.
-- To Go With Music
Days of sitting alone in front of a computer to listen to music will be
over. Through http://www.Kuro.cn, the latest and the most complete music
can be easily downloaded, allowing users to enjoy wireless music anytime
anywhere.
-- Dynamic Lyrics Easy Karaoke
Through the exclusive dynamic lyrics with the verbatim function, users
can practice singing anytime anywhere by using Amoi's music phones, and
easily become a Karaoke star.
-- Online Hard Drive Supports Unlimited Storage Space for Songs
Nightmares of lack of memory space and continuously updating memory
cards and flash memory will be over. Online music on demand is free to
users as long as they are members.
-- Intelligent Songs Recommendation, Easy Download
Easy-to-use selection of songs and preserving them into one file,
saving searching time.
-- Eternal Memory for Songs
The song playlist, which is time consuming to establish, will not be
destroyed because of machine damage or updating. All those downloaded songs
will be preserved online, and may be restored easily.
-- Dual-card Standby
A single phone has the capability of supporting two SIM cards,
providing more convenience to users.
About Spreadtrum:
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD; "Spreadtrum") is a
fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops, and markets baseband
processor solutions for the mobile wireless communications market.
Spreadtrum combines its semiconductor design expertise with its software
development capabilities to deliver highly-integrated baseband processors
with multimedia functionality and power management. Spreadtrum has
developed its solutions based on an open development platform, enabling its
customers to develop customized wireless products that are feature-rich and
meet their cost and time-to-market requirements.
For more information, please check: http://www.spreadtrum.com
About Amoi:
Amoi Electronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Amoi", stock code: 600057),
listed as a public company in 1997 on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, now owns
a staff of 20,000 and a total asset of RMB4.3 billion.
Amoi Electronic Town, now the production base of Amoi, occupies around
400,000sqm and has production lines adopting the most advanced and complete
manufacturing facilities among China 3C enterprises, including 29 SMT lines
and 95 plastic injection equipments. At present, Amoi has reached an annual
production capacity of 10 million mobile phones and 2 million others.
Taking the development, manufacturing and sales of mobile communication
products as its main business, Amoi has also realized a 3C (Communication,
Consumer Electronics and Computer) integration. In addition to a full line
of mobile phones, Amoi offers LCD TVs, which are widely welcomed in the
television market both in and out of China, and notebook PCs in a special
pattern of ODM. In terms of technical research and development, there're
three R&D centers founded, respectively in Xiamen, Shanghai and Nanjing,
with a staff of around 1,200. To better serve the markets, 30 branches and
300 offices have been put into operation domestically around China, and
overseas subsidiaries have been established, firstly in Singapore and the
United States, later in the UK, and then in Belgium. Now, Amoi is providing
tailor-made 2.5G and 3G phones for leading operators around the globe.
As one of China 3C enterprises with the best R&D and technical
capability, Amoi always takes innovation as the core concept running
through its technical research & development, product design, and
marketing. AMOI insists on customer orientation, and will, through
continuous innovation, bring more convenience and happiness to the
consumers by providing electronics products with high tech, quality and
taste.
To better adapt itself to the changes of industrial environment and
customer demands taken place during the past few years, Amoi released its
new logo and slogan in mid-2007. The new slogan "touching your future"
expresses Amoi's faith and decision to be ceaselessly enterprising and
innovative, thus to create a more fashionable lifestyle for the consumers.
About Kuro:
Beijing Kuro Times Tech Co., Ltd. is a digital multimedia content
service providing company. Its main business is to create user-friendly
driven service, deliver e-CD formatted legal contents with very powerful
portable devices download capability.
Safe Harbor Statements:
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the
meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements include,
without limitation, statements regarding the ability of the new solution
for music phones to satisfy consumers' varied but growing levels of demand
for copyrighted music and enhance the performance and competitiveness of
China's domestic music phones. These statements are forward-looking in
nature and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual market
trends and Spreadtrum's actual results to differ materially from those
expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements for a variety of
reasons. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to,
uncertainty regarding the timing and pace of the market demand and
acceptance for music phones offering the capability of downloading
copyrighted music; continued competitive pressure in the semiconductor
industry and the effect of such pressure on prices; unpredictable changes
in technology and consumer demand for mobile handsets; the state of and any
change in Spreadtrum's relationships with its major customers; and changes
in political, economic, legal and social conditions in China. For
additional discussion of these risks and uncertainties and other factors,
please consider the information contained in Spreadtrum's filings with the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), including the
registration statement on Form F-1 filed on June 26, 2007, as amended,
especially the sections under "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion
and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations," and such
other documents that Spreadtrum may file with the SEC from time to time,
including on Form 6-K. Spreadtrum assumes no obligation to update any
forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this press
release.
For more information, please contact:
Media Contact:
William Shi
Spreadtrum Communications
Tel: +86-10-62702988 x217
Email: william.shi@spreadtrum.com
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