Sun, 02/15/2009

2009 Press Releases

RealNetworks and China Telecom Deliver First Mobile Information Service to Sichuan Telecom Subscribers


BARCELONA — February 16, 2009 — Today from GSMA Mobile World Congress 2009, RealNetworks®, Inc., (RNWK) the digital entertainment services company, announced that — with Sichuan Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom — they deployed a Mobile Information Push Portal (MIPP) Service to Sichuan Telecom's five million subscribers last month. This new service allows subscribers to access news, entertainment, weather, sports, finance information and more, when and wherever they want.

"We are honored to be awarded a second partnership with China Telecom," said Jay Kim, vice president, RealNetworks Asia Pacific. "We are pleased with the results of our Emoticon SMS performance and respect their commitment to work with Real on the Mobile Information Push Portal Service. We will continue to bring our global market leadership to China by providing technology and services that are localised and customised to Chinese market."

Once Sichuan Telecom MIPP subscribers choose from the available channels, they will receive SMS or MMS messages a few times each day with the updates they have requested. They can request detailed information on a particular topic by responding with a simple text to receive a WAP URL (or full text message for non-WAP-enabled phones). Channels available at launch include News, Weather, Entertainment (information about music and movies), Sports, and Finance. Additional channels will be added regularly. The service was launched in mid-January and is being offered as a free trial for all subscribers through the end of February.

"We are happy to introduce this attractive new service to our Sichuan Province subscribers," said Qiang Fu, general manager, China Telecom. "We value and benefit from Real's expertise in providing digital entertainment to mobile handsets and look forward to a long, prosperous relationship with them."

Real's ASP services are currently available through 80 different mobile operators in 42 countries worldwide, making them available to 797.1 million subscribers. Real offers mobile operators a comprehensive selection of mobile services including: Music-On-Demand; Video-On-Demand; personalization features such as Ringtones, Ringback Tones and Multimedia Ringback Services; and messaging services.

Find RealNetworks at Mobile World Congress at Hospitality Suite 19 & 25, Hall 4, Level 0.

For More Information Contact:

In Europe
Stephen Orr
Axicom
D: 020 8392 4056
M: 07770 846 515
stephen.orr@axicom.com

In the US
Jennifer Humiston
SHIFT Communications
617.779.1812

In Asia
Eric Suh
RealNetworks
+82 2 20 14 5377
eric.suh@ap.real.com

ABOUT REALNETWORKS

RealNetworks, Inc. delivers digital entertainment services to consumers via PC, portable music player, home entertainment system and mobile phone. Real created the streaming media category in 1995 and has continued to lead the market with pioneering products and services, including: RealPlayer®, the first mainstream media player to enable one-click downloading and recording of Internet video; the award-winning Rhapsody® digital music service, which delivers more than 1 billion songs per year; RealArcade, one of the largest casual games destinations on the Web; and a variety of mobile entertainment services, such as ringback tones, offered to consumers through leading wireless carriers around the world. RealNetworks' corporate information is located at www.realnetworks.com/company.

RealNetworks, RealArcade, Rhapsody, RealPlayer and the Real logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, names of actual companies and products mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.