Ericsson Goes Live! in Egypt

STOCKHOLM -- Ericsson has been selected by Vodafone Egypt to deliver and install turnkey GPRS, MMS, and Instant Messaging solutions to power its "Vodafone live!" services. Vodafone Egypt initially launched mobile services in 1998 and has secured a customer base of over 2 million subscribers. Vodafone Egypt is now a widely recognized brand name in the Egyptian consumer market. "We are delighted with the level of commitment and partnership the local Ericsson team has demonstrated in preparation for launching Vodafone live! in April this year", said Thomas Poland, Vodafone Egypt Chief Technical Officer. "Ericsson has shown clear understanding of our business by working together to meet our aggressive rollout plan." MMS offers a dramatic increase in mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-e-mail messaging capabilities by enabling color pictures, animations, audio and video clips to be sent along with text, such as electronic postcards, animated cartoons and multimedia presentations. "We are very pleased to reinforce our long-term partnership with Vodafone Egypt," says Johan Lallerstedt, Ericsson President of Market Unit Northern Africa. "This contract will enable Vodafone Egypt to bring the latest technology to the Northern African market quickly to further increase the value of our offering to Egyptian consumers." LM Ericsson Vodafone Group plc