MUMBAI: MIH India, part of Naspers has picked up a 30 per cent stake in mobile value added services (VAS) company ACL Wireless. The total value of the investment from MIH is $12.3 million.
The investment comes at a time when the mobile VAS sector in India, currently at approximately $ 500 million is expected to grow to $ 10 billion by 2010.
MIH India CEO Ashish Kashyap said, “Our investment in ACL Wireless is part of our India growth strategy. ACL Wireless has built strong products and services in the mobile VAS space and has strong partnerships and alliances with mobile operators across the globe (besides India). This strategic investment will enable MIH owned ibibo.com to make in-roads into the growing Indian mobile VAS market.”
ACL Wireless CEO Sanjay Goyal added, “The partnership will also drive joint efforts for development of consumer based products and services for the mobile. The strategic investment and partnership will also give ACL Wireless an opportunity to access MIH’s global footprint.”
MIH in India, earlier this year soft launched ibibo.com, a growing social community website with a suite of applications. Naspers has interests in media and Internet businesses in India, South Africa, China, Brazil, Russia and Thailand.
ACL Wireless owns Frenzo, a mobile based social networking platform and develops solutions in the field of mobile communities, instant messaging, carrier agnostic connectivity and content aggregation.
