LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO – November 7, 2006 – The use of advertising to fund mobile services will significantly increase the consumption of mobile content and generate a new revenue stream for operators, according to live trial results released today by Amobee Media Systems.

Aggregated data from multiple trials with tier 1 operators in multiple markets shows that for every person that paid to download mobile content, up to 50 took the ‘ad-funded’ version in return for accepting advertising. The advertising revenues can be worth as much as four times the equivalent download value.

The results were released by Amobee, following live trials of its Mobile Media System. The trials represent a huge confirmation of the growing user acceptance of ad-funded mobile content.

“There’s a limit to how much we can expect consumers to continuously increase their spend on new content services,” said Eden Zoller, Principal Analyst with Ovum’s Consumer Practice. “This has the potential to impact the growth of data ARPU, which is critical in markets where voice ARPU is declining. In this context driving revenues from mobile advertising is important, but you will only succeed if ads are relevant and contextual – and permission-based.”

Amobee is the first company to deliver a user-centric approach to ad-fund the operators’ entire mobile content and communication business (including Browsing, Video & Music, SMS, MMS and Games). The advertising is presented in a relevant, contextual, targeted, personalized and user friendly manner. It places the mobile user at the centre of the experience and engages operators, content developers and agencies in the creation of new advertising “value streams”.

Zohar Levkovitz, CEO, Amobee Media Systems, said: ‘‘Mobile is the last remaining medium in which the user bears the full weight of payment – a situation that will ultimately stifle growth. Ad-funding the mobile business has the potential to create new revenue streams for operators and content providers, and to deliver an innovative, targeted and measurable advertising channel for brands. Yet consumer acceptance is the key to success, and we firmly believe that the subscriber must see a concrete benefit in terms of the cost and quality of mobile content.”

For ad-funding the mobile games business, Amobee provides games developers with a small SDK called HAPI (Handset Application Programming Interface) which can be integrated and activated in minutes making the games ‘Amobee ready’ and conditioned to take ads.

Insertions are served to a subscriber’s screen during idle time in the game, for example between levels or during loading. The subscriber then has the option of engaging with the advertising brand to receive information, even initiate a transaction, or can opt not to view the ad and to go straight the next level.

Karl Woods, Vice President Sales and Marketing at Kiloo, a mobile entertainment publisher that has integrated Amobee's HAPI into its games, said: “Amobee-ready games will dramatically increase the number of downloads through subsidized games, helping generate new revenues. The ease and simplicity of integrating The Amobee Media System and the intelligence generated on user behaviour, for example number of game plays after download, average length of time spent on a level and on an ad, or level reached, provides us with the ability for deep user analysis and the ability to create better games.”