Tokyo, February 28th 2005 --- NEC today announced that it has successfully deployed a Ringback Melody (RBM) System project for China's largest cell phone operator, Guangdong Mobile, an affiliate of China Mobile Communications Corporation, which is currently holding over 40 million subscribers. Operations of the project commenced in January 2004, and its subscriber numbers topped 10 million in January 2005, making it the world's largest for a fully operating Ringback Melody service.

Taking cue from the success of this project, NEC will further expand its RBM solution business throughout China's other provinces, Asia, Japan, European countries, Russia and other countries. It will also provide other value-added solutions for mobile internet services.

The main feature of NEC's RBM solution is its capability to roll out merely by adding dedicated software onto the server base of Guangdong Mobile's existing mobile phone infrastructure without imposing a heavy burden on the existing infrastructure. The ringback melody comes with high sound quality. It also supports roaming subscriber service and easy scaling-up to a larger system.

The central system was installed in Guangzhou, which is connected to front-end equipment in eight major cities including Shenzhen, Dongguan, Jiangmen and Foshan. As the system expansion is quite easy and simple and with the service expecting to see a rapid increase in subscribers to over 14.4 million, NEC is targeting a contract for further system expansion.

Guangdong Mobile has, through tie-ups with content providers, put together a dedicated website for PCs and mobile phones. On this website, users can make use of service contents and check out the menu of new music arrivals; 15,000 songs are already on hand.

Expansion of high-level functionality for the mobile Internet services in China is moving forward, and 3G deployment is becoming a reality. NEC is forging strategic relationships with mobile operators, contents providers, and end users, and is reinforcing its mobile applications business to provide improved revenue and create new business opportunities for operators. In order to contribute to the development of mobile services, NEC is cooperating in the area of 3G infrastructure and 2.5G/3G mobile terminals and is quickly rolling out attractive mobile services.

Targeting the reinforcement of sales, SE, SI and maintenance of mobile solutions in China, NEC will construct an infrastructure support section centered in Guangdongto promote sales and support of mobile applications together with infrastructure. This will also ensure that service offerings are localized to closely follow customers' needs.

About NEC's mobile application business
NEC is a total mobile solutions provider capable of providing solutions from cellular handsets to infrastructure and mobile applications. NEC has been actively expanding its sales in mobile applications, infrastructure and handsets, not only within Japan, but also in overseas markets. The firm has a proven track record of delivering platforms for implementing mobile internet services such as i-mode/WAP2.0, along with location information systems, contents conversion software, mail servers, and the like. NEC's mobile applications are value-added applications by which, using cell phones, persons anywhere can easily get the information they want and freely participate in their favorite communities and thus live more fulfilling lives. The fundamental concepts behind the applications are "personalize", "community" and "security." In the recent years, because of the penetration of camera-equipped cell phones and the introduction of ring tone services for call sender, the keywords "personal" and "community" have assumed greater importance. On the other hand, when introduction of 3G infrastructure and IMS gets going, the changeover to all-IP and broadband multimedia data communications will move into high gear. The predictions are, as a result, that packet-based voice services -- such as VoIP service and PoC (Push to Talk Over Cellular) -- will expand and the integration of voice and data services will accelerate along with the introduction of image distribution services such as cartoons or movies.

On the foundation of its Mobile Internet Platform, NEC will aggressively expand sales efforts in its primary products of (i) "Ring back melodies", in which phone call recipients let call senders hear their favorite music or messages, (ii) "Location information system", a platform for providing various services based on participant's location and (iii) "3G/2.5G Mobile Visual Solution" to provide multimedia data such as cartoons, together with its other application software offerings.

MEDIA CONTACTS
Akiko Shikimori
NEC Corporation
Tel: +81 3 3798 6511
e-mail: a-shikimori@ay.jp.nec.com