Leading Chinese Mobile Search Provider Partners With Leading Expatriate-Focused Print Publisher to Enhance the Guanxi(TM) Mobile City Guide
SHANGHAI, China, Aug. 6 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- mInfo(R) Inc. ( http://www.minfo.com ), the leading Chinese mobile search provider, announces a strategic partnership relationship with Ringier, the publisher of the highly successful City Weekend and Betty's Kitchen magazines. The two companies will cooperate in the mobile arena by delivering an even better user experience for the Guanxi(TM) mobile city guide in China. The partnership between the two companies will be extensive, and will include areas ranging from content sharing, coop marketing, and joint sales.
"Ringier is the leader in its space with huge amounts of valuable content and a loyal readership in major Chinese cities," said Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO, "mInfo Inc. By working together, we can offer our joint users a new channel to access this content and Ringier's advertisers a non-intrusive way to reach their target audience via the mobile medium."
mInfo is the leading mobile search service in China, and the only company offering mobile search services via SMS, WAP, IM and embedded client with support for natural language queries in Chinese, pinyin and English. The Guanxi mobile city guide is one of mInfo's service offerings focused at the expatriate market in China. It has been the preferred mobile search service of foreign expatriates in China since 2002 offering SMS local directory services using English or Chinese in 20 major cities in China. The Guanxi service is now available nationwide on all fourth Chinese mobile carriers via the SMS short-code of 95882929. Users just need to send a venue name or interested query from their mobile phone to receive relevant responses almost instantly.
The partnership will initially focus around Ringier's City Weekend magazine, a free English biweekly entertainment guide to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Since its founding in 1998, City Weekend has built a comprehensive database of updated venue listings across greater China aimed at the English speaking market. Besides offering free venue listings, online classifieds, upcoming events and original features, City Weekend is the only publication that allows its readers to share and edit content on its innovative website http://www.cityweekend.com.cn .
"Ringier is committed to providing new media solutions for readers in China, including mobile phone services," said Tim Murray, CEO, Beijing Ringier. "mInfo and Guanxi offer City Weekend a perfect vehicle to leverage our large database of venues and events in China for the English speaking market. Guanxi has a great brand and reputation as a mobile search provider. By partnering, we can quickly and professionally reach out to the mobile audience in China and extend our market share in the industry. It's a win-win cooperation between the two parties."
About mInfo Inc.
mInfo(R) Inc. is the leading provider of mobile search services to China's 450 million wireless subscribers and a leading mobile advertising platform for branded and SME advertisers throughout China. mInfo Inc. operates both the mInfo and Guanxi(tm) brands of search services. mInfo delivers instant answers on over dozens of types of life oriented search categories, and its services are available nationwide on all four major mobile carriers in China via SMS, WAP, IM, and embedded clients. mInfo's mobile search services are based on numerous patent-pending technologies making its services truly intuitive to use and its search results highly relevant. mInfo was founded in early 2005 and headquartered in Shanghai, with offices in Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. For more information on mInfo, please visit http://www.minfo.com .
About Ringier
Ringier is Swiss based magazine and newspaper publisher with offices across Europe, Vietnam and China. In 2002, Beijing Ringier Advertising was created. It now includes over seven major titles including Betty's Kitchen, CAAC Inflight magazine, Oriental Sky and City Weekend. With offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Beijing Ringier offers customized and comprehensive advertising channels for local and international businesses seeking expansion in China. For more information on Ringier, please visit http://www.ringier.ch .
