LONDON and NEW DELHI, India, Oct. 28, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bharti Airtel, Asia's leading integrated telecom services provider, has announced the launch of India's first ever live mobile comic service on its mobile entertainment portal, Airtel Live.
Airtel's 'Comics Portal' provides subscribers with WAP-enabled handsets to access more than 300 Indian and international comic characters including Doga, Nagraj, Akbar, Birbal, Tenaliraman, Jataka Tales, Love Is, BC, Animal Crackers and Dick Tracey as well as comics supplied by Amar Chitra Katha.
Commenting on the launch, Saleem Mobhani, Head of M-Entertainment at Bharti Airtel, said, "Comics have the power to make us smile or laugh out loud, transcending all boundaries of age, class and culture. More than a third of Airtel customers in India have GPRS-enabled handsets, and with the mobile becoming the one-stop device for all entertainment needs, comics are a much sought after addition to our existing services on Airtel Live. From childhood favourites like Robin Hood, to the more local Nagaraj, the Comics Portal will make our customers laugh aloud, at least once a day."
Airtel customers may access the Comics Portal service by texting 'COMICS' or "COMIC" to 54321.
Compatible with all GPRS-enabled handsets, the service is charged at Rs 10 per week for 10 Comic Strips (inclusive of data charges)
Airtel's Comics Portal has been developed by Shotformats Digital Productions Pvt Ltd (a leading Indian mobile VAS provider) and ROK Entertainment Group, the UK-based mobile technologies company.
About Bharti Airtel Limited
Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is Asia's leading integrated telecom services provider with operations in India and Sri Lanka and an aggregate of over 110.89 million customers as of end of August 2009, consisting of 107.99 million mobile customers. Bharti Airtel has been ranked among six best performing technology companies in the world by BusinessWeek.
Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units -- Mobile services, Telemedia services and Enterprise services. The mobile business offers services in India and Sri Lanka. The Telemedia business provides broadband, IPTV and telephone services in 95 cities. The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtel's national high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 104,540 Rkms covering all the major cities in India. The company has two international landing stations in Chennai that connects two submarine cable systems -- i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe. For more information, visit www.bhartiairtel.in
About ROK:
Founded in 2004, ROK Entertainment Group is a mobile technologies, applications and services development company with a suite of revenue-generating mobile services which it licenses to Mobile Operators and Handset Manufacturers worldwide. Headquartered in the UK, ROK is best known for its award-winning mobile TV services which streams video -- live and on demand -- over 2.5G, 3G and Wi-Fi(R). In addition, ROK has 5 patent awards and many more patent applications in place. For more information, please visit: www.rokent.com
Forward-Looking Statement:
The information contained in this news release, other than historical information, consists of forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these statements. Forward-looking statements regarding the timing of developing, testing and releasing existing and new products, of marketing and selling them, of deriving revenues and profits from them, as well as the effects of those revenues and profits on the Group's margins and financial position, are uncertain because many of the factors affecting the timing of those items are beyond the Group's control.