BARCELONA, Spain, March 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Private Media Group Inc. , a worldwide leader in premium-quality adult lifestyle products and services, has announced, today, the launch of its direct to consumer WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) portal. The portal uses the latest technology and billing capabilities and offers Private's world renowned erotic and semi-erotic content featuring the entire roster of leading Private stars, Private's popular DVD blockbuster mini-sites, games, downloads and SMS chat.
Private has partnered with Cherrysauce for the design and management of its innovative mobile portal, creating a new industry benchmark, while providing a turnkey adult lifestyle portal for the rapidly developing mobile direct to consumer marketplace. WAP platform specialists, Safira Solutions, has been responsible for creating a global and totally dynamic technology platform which can be easily and quickly expanded, updated and adapted. The platform is fully integrated with a new global billing solution provided by Textbill. The mobile portal will launch with Premium SMS shortcodes in the UK, Germany and Spain, and offers global Credit Card billing. It also incorporates a comprehensive and tested age-verification system.
Julia Dimambro, Managing Director of Cherrysauce, commented: "With Private's hugely successful content portfolio and our in-depth expertise in mobile erotica, we have been able to create a truly compelling mobile experience, not only for Private's loyal customer base, but also for a wider scope of mobile users looking for top quality adult entertainment."
Berth Milton, CEO of Private Media Group commented: "The launch of our own dedicated WAP portal is a new exciting feature adding to the tremendous growth we expect in our wireless business going forward. Our business development in 2005 in this high-margin segment has been phenomenal. We've increased sales year on year in 2005 by 83% to 1.0 million euro with 80% of the increase coming from the fourth quarter alone."
Tim Clausen, Director of Wireless Technologies at Private Media Group added, "According to Juniper Research, global sales of mobile adult content will hit $2.1 billion in 2009. We believe that adult content and gambling will offer the greatest potential revenue streams within the mobile internet sector. Today, the key is to use both 'on portal' and 'off portal' as a strategy. WAP today, through new generation technology, enables a new customer experience and with our innovative 'off portal' solution we gain a bigger slice of the revenue pie by saving money on aggregator/operator revenue sharing. Furthermore, with tested age verification in place, we are able to offer explicit content, as opposed to the existing soft content through operators' portals. This allows us to meet consumer demand by offering the product they are really looking for."
NOTES TO THE EDITORS:
About Private Wireless (Mobile). Private generates revenues from wireless deals both on and off portal. Private's ability to effectively use and re-use its content creates a high-margin business model for wireless since distribution costs are almost non-existent. Through agreements with content aggregators in the on portal business, Private's content is currently available to mobile consumers via 37 operators in 19 countries, of which 13 operators went live since September 2005. During March 2006, the Company expects to go live with 8 additional operators. In addition to the new mobile portal wap.private .com, Private's current off portal activity consists of selling and promoting mobile content through its own media channels such as: Internet, publications and DVDs.
About Cherrysauce. Cherry Media S.L., Barcelona, Spain is one of mobile's leading erotic specialists with 40 B2B partnerships in 29 countries around the world. Cherrysauce distributes formatted erotic products and WAP portal designs and content into over 65 mobile channels, 29 of which are operator portals either direct or via aggregator relationships. Its chief executive was recently voted among the 'Top 50 content execs' by Mobile Entertainment magazine.
About Safira Solutions. Safira Solutions is a provider of innovative internet based management solutions and consulting services for small & medium sized companies. Established in 2003, Safira Solutions has developed proprietary web based applications for customer relationship management, e-commerce and mobile marketing that offer companies affordable and easy to implement technological solutions.
About Textbill. Textbill is the adult and gaming billing solution from Mibill, a leading provider of ESMS-Merchant solutions for online entertainment and subscription-based websites. As leading technology supplier for SMS Payment Solutions, Mibill has set the standard for reliable, real-time authentication services, automated password management solutions, and advanced fraud prevention systems.
About Private Media Group. With its 40 year track record, Private Media Group is the world's leading adult lifestyle company that distributes a wide range of erotic and semi-erotic multimedia content over several platforms, including wireless and broadcasting technologies, narrow and broadband Internet, DVD and Magazines. Private Media Group also licenses its Private and silvergirls trademarks, internationally for a range of luxury consumer products and owns the worldwide rights to the largest archive of high quality adult content in the world, which it physically distributes in over 40 countries.
Disclaimer. This release contains, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which reflect the Company's current judgments of those issues. However, because these statements are forward-looking and apply to future events, they are subject to unpredictable circumstances, which could lead to results materially different from those anticipated by the Company.
For further information please contact:
Private Media Group, Inc.
Alejandra Moore Mayorga
Tel: +34 91 531 23 88
© 2006 PR Newswire
