TORONTO, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Playstar Corporation is pleased to announce the realignment of our core business to the development of premium 'SMS' (Short Message Service) text service for mobile cellular phones.
We are currently in negotiations with a privately owned company who has acquired and developed the platforms necessary to implement a turn-key SMS operation through the use of 'Short Codes'.
Short codes, also known as short numbers or Common Short Codes (CSC) are special telephone numbers, significantly shorter than full telephone numbers, which can be used to send an SMS text. Short codes are widely used for value-added services such as television voting (i.e. American Idol), and ordering ring tones. SMS is a service available on most digital mobile phones (and other mobile devices, e.g. a Pocket PC, or occasionally even desktop computers) that permit the sending of short messages (also known as text messages, or more colloquially SMSes, texts or even txts) between mobile phones, other handheld devices and even landline telephones.
INDUSTRY NEWS
The common short code market is experiencing rapid growth in North America, and is providing exciting opportunities for media, content, technology, entertainment, advertising, and consumer goods companies to reach more than 200 million wireless consumers. In June 2005 alone, over 7.2 billion mobile text messages were sent over U.S. carrier networks; an increase from 2.8 billion messages sent in June 2004. Revenues from Short Message Service (SMS) messaging have also increased to $1.24 billion - an astonishing 154 percent in the first six months of 2005. This growth is likely to continue: the number of worldwide mobile messages is expected to increase from 878.3 billion messages in 2005 to 1.5 trillion by 2008, leading to significant revenue growth for content, media providers, and other retailers that utilize SMS messaging to promote their goods and services.
The number of common short codes available is limited and continent-specific. For example, only 79,999 different short codes are available within the range of 20000 to 99999 in North America.
As message volumes increase so will revenues. Telenor, a European wireless carrier, generated $85 million in revenue from CSCs in less than a year after their introduction. Users sent more than 1 billion messages to short codes, leading to major jumps in SMS traffic.
This news release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (The "Act"). In particular, when used in the preceding discussion, the words "pleased," "plan," "confident that," "believe," "expect," or "intend to," and similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Act and are subject to the safe harbor created by the Act. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from those expressed in any of the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, market conditions, general acceptance of the Company's products and technologies, competitive factors, the ability to successfully complete additional financings and other risks described in the Company's SEC reports and filings.
