MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
February 28 – March 6, 2008 Edition
Penguin Books India
Teams With Mobifusion
To Reach Mobile Users
Gurgaon, India//28/2008–Asia’s biggest English language publisher Penguin Books India announced last week that it is entering into a partnership with Mobifusion to make content available on the mobile platform.
Mobifusion Inc. is a global developer, publisher and distributor of mobile technologies and value-added services and will make a wide range of content from Penguin’s books available to mobile customers. The partnership that will begin with a focus on the Indian consumer base will look to a global roll-out in time, expanding to include Penguin’s global brand and an array of international products.
Given changing lifestyles and evolving technologies, this tie-up is a great new step towards making content available to new readers, Mobifusion said in announcing the deal. Consumers will soon be able to access content from books on their mobiles even when they are on the move, and participate in exciting interactive opportunities.
The Penguin-Mobifusion partnership will begin with content from three popular Penguin books –The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living with Mother Teresa complied by Jaya Chaliha and Edward Le Joly, The Path to Tranquillity by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and The Book of Prayer edited by Renuka Narayanan-being made available on mobile platforms.
‘We’re excited to partner with the innovators at Mobifusion and engage in interactive communications with the millions of mobile users who are also avid readers,’ said Mike Bryan, CEO and President, Penguin Books India. ‘At Penguin, we aspire to make great literature in all its forms available to the widest possible audience and this is a very significant step on that journey as we look to build a solid mobile reading community across India.’ Genevieve Shore, Penguin Group’s Global Digital Director added ‘At Penguin we see mobile technology as a hugely exciting global opportunity, not just as a means of widening access to our content, but also as a way to meet the growing consumer demand for personalised content and services,’
‘In collaboration with Penguin, we are in position to bring Indian users a wider variety of mobile services, encompassing Penguin’s diverse lifestyle categories,’ said Prashant Gupta, Managing Director, Mobifusion India. Pavan Mandhani, Founder and CEO of Mobifusion, added, ‘Indian mobile subscribers are demanding more branded, personalized, and localized content from their providers and Mobifusion is committed to actively supporting the needs of the country’s users using our patented technologies.’
Penguin Books India is the largest English language trade publisher in the subcontinent. Headquartered in New Delhi, the company’s commercial activity includes the publishing of its own books in the English language as well as in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and soon in Malayalam. Penguin India also represents books from overseas publishers including the Penguin Group, Bloomsbury, A&C Black, Faber & Faber, Greenwood Publishing, Quercus and Sterling Publishing exclusively in India. Penguin India publishes more than 200 new titles every year and has an active backlist of over 2000 titles.
Mobifusion is a leading mobile media content company that partners with top media and publishing companies to develop and deliver best-selling branded mobile content products to consumers around the world.
