New Delhi, Delhi, Affle, a leading mobile media company today announced a strategic investment and partnership with Itochu Corporation, one of the worlds leading diversified and comprehensive trading companies with approximately $130 billion of annual total trading transactions and approximately $12 billion of total market value. This investment strengthens Itochus strategic focus in the media and telecom businesses in Asia and beyond. With Itochus investment (in 2010) and Microsofts investment (in 2009), Affle has strengthened its position to expand its mobile media business globally. Affle has made significant progress on product development, customer acquisition and revenue growth post the last round of investment from Microsoft in 2009 and as a clear validation of that, this investment from Itochu has come at a significant premium to the last round.
Affles primary business involves creating significant mobile advertising opportunities through the development, deployment and commercialization of innovative mobile technologies. Affles largest success has been with it\\\'s SMS2.0 product which through an upgrade of the default SMS application seamlessly embeds a rich media experience on the SMS. This technology has already been successfully launched by over 10 Mobile Network Operators across Asian markets and has already become the largest mobile media for a lot of them. Affles flagship business market continues to be India where it has significantly grown its business to include delivering & selling relevant mobile advertising for top Mobile Network Operators and Media Companies to over 100 of its advertiser & agency customers.
Commenting on this association Mr. Anuj Khanna, CEO, Affle, said: The last year has been excellent for our business. Our revenues grew by over 200% in the last 4 quarters and we made successful forays into newer businesses & markets. In this year our existing markets have already started turning cash flow positive and thus a lot of this newer investment would thus be utilized for enhancing current & building new innovative mobile technologies, while focusing on creating larger business successes in some key markets. We are confident that Affle will continue to derive significant strategic mileage from the relationships with Itochu and Microsoft and continue to add significant value to our shareholders. We believe that the expertise and relationships of our strategic investors in the Mobile media eco-system will help Affle scale this business globally at a very rapid pace.
Commenting on this association Mr. Kiyoshi Imagawa, General Manager, Media & Internet Business, Itochu, said; We are glad to participate in this round. Our mission is to make meaningful investments in technology companies with high-growth potential. We are confident the value proposition Affle poses to the global mobile and media markets will drive the necessary revenue to support its expansion to other Asian countries. And furthermore, we are committed to build a strategic alliance with Affle by leveraging highly-advanced Japanese mobile business models and services.
Itochu is now a minority shareholder in Affle Holdings, a Singapore based company which is the holding company for all of Affles local companies and this investment has been made as part of the Series B investment round at Affle. Affle has its R&D and Product Development centre based out of Singapore, which is creating innovative technologies enabling media consumption on mobile, and has business teams across various geographies.
