South African media group backs BuzzCity’s expansion plans
Singapore - Aug 28, 2008 (PRN):
BuzzCity, a developer of global wireless communities and consumer
services, has secured USD$10 million growth capital financing by new
investor Naspers, a South Africa based integrated multinational media
company.
BuzzCity will use the financing to extend market share for its core
property, myGamma.com and its network of sites. The company’s growth
strategy will continue to focus on growing the membership base of
myGamma, developing more user generated content through member services
and applications; invest in applications aimed at maximizing
partnership opportunities and growing myGamma’s portfolio of
advertising clients.
"The growth opportunity for off-deck services continues to grow
globally. We’ve seen phenomenal growth in markets in South Asia and
Africa and in the coming year, we expect to see this growth to include
markets in Europe and USA" said KF Lai, CEO of BuzzCity. ”The common
footprints we have make this a strategic relationship for developing
our media properties, particularly in South Africa, India and Thailand.
We look forward to working closely with the group to ramp up our
growth” added Lai.
"The past year for us has also been marked by partnerships with some of
the world's leading WAP publishers and mobile digital agencies.
BuzzCity has been on an aggressive development programme and secured
overwhelming interest from businesses to be part of our growth plans,”
added Lai. He continues: “Users are clearly loving what BuzzCity is
offering; the number of users has grown exponentially, and traffic to
myGamma network of partner sites has exceeded 6 billion pageviews in
the first 6 months of 2008.”
Juniper Research recently predicted that the number of mobile phone
users globally will increase from 577 million to 1.7 billion by 2013,
with applications such as social networking and user-generated content
being key drivers for this growth.
Ian Chard, Analyst at Juniper Research, says: “The market opportunity
for BuzzCity is clear. BuzzCity’s ‘myGamma’ community has made stunning
headway in the mobile social networking space, reaching 2.7 million
users across 70 countries. As an off-deck application, it has
successfully applied the D2C business model in an operator-dominated
market, and established a strong advertising base that hit 1.7 billion
paid ad impressions in July 2008 alone.”
Chard adds: “Furthermore, myGamma serves two distinct audiences: the
newly-connected emerging middle class in developing markets, and
blue-collar users in developed regions – making it a shining example of
how the social web can span demographic, as well as geographic divides.”
About BuzzCity:
BuzzCity is a developer of global wireless communities and consumer
services. Established in 1999 in Singapore, BuzzCity today operates the
world’s largest wireless community - mygamma.com - for two distinct
audiences: the newly connected emerging middle class in developing
markets and the blue collar sector in developed regions. These
"unwired" consumers, are accessing the mobile Internet on their phones
due to widespread and affordable wireless access.
BuzzCity provides marketers with unprecedented opportunities to reach
this audience via its far-reaching advertising, merchant and publisher
programs. Additional information can be found at www.buzzcity.com.
For more information, contact:
Skywrite Communications
Catriona Biggart/Claudia Bate
Tel: +44 20 7608 4650
Email: buzzcity@skywritecomms.com