Mobile Social Community mig33 Sees Fast Growth in Messaging, Virtual Gifting After Launching New Social Entertainment Features

SINGAPORE, January 18 /PRNewswire/ --
mig33, the world's largest mobile-first community, today announced exceptional growth of -- and activity within -- its global community and the release of several new features designed to strengthen its position as the fastest-growing mobile Social Entertainment Service (SES) in emerging markets.
mig33's worldwide community has now grown to more than 30 million registered users as it continues to add almost 1 million new users per month. Additionally, its messaging volume grew dramatically, with the service now delivering more than 500 million messages per day.
The growth comes parallel to mig33's release of several new features designed to push those growth rates even higher as the company broadens its SES offerings and expands its thriving virtual economy.
"mig33 remains single-minded in its strategy, which is to provide emerging, mobile-first markets with social entertainment options and, in turn, continue to grow a vibrant virtual economy," said Steven Goh, CEO and co-founder, mig33. "Rather than seeking a single 'silver bullet' in features, we understand that success lies in providing lots of different options that, together, provide the best possible mobile social experience."
The latest features -- just out of beta -- include wall creation and commenting, voting, and updated profile pages that display, among other things, virtual gifts exchanged. The new features are available on over 2,000 handsets that mig33 currently supports. The company plans on releasing additional new mobile SES features in coming weeks.
mig33, previously based in the heart of Silicon Valley, relocated to Singapore less than two months ago. The set-up of its engineering centre was supported by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), under its iCentre Programme. With the support of iCentre, mig33 plans to expand its presence in Singapore and regionally by growing the virtual economy through developing social entertainment with more social games and applications and developing on other platforms, including Android, iPhone and Facebook, for wider consumer reach.
"Through its iCentre programme, IDA provides developmental support for start-ups like mig33 to establish new engineering centres in Singapore. We believe that activities from start-ups like mig33 will increase the diversity of entrepreneurs and engineering talents in Singapore. This is part of IDA's longer term vision of developing Singapore as an innovation hub for entrepreneurial activities by VC-backed start-ups," said Mr Andrew Khaw, Senior Director, Industry Development Group, IDA.
"mig33's ultimate goal is to become the Tencent QQ for the rest of the world and, as such, we believe Singapore's IDA support is a solid investment for both Singapore and mig33," said Goh.
About mig33
mig33 is the world's largest mobile-first community, providing communications and entertainment services for more than 30 million members and their mobile devices worldwide. With mig33, members in more than 200 countries engage in vibrant chat communities, instant messaging, email, photo sharing, virtual gifting, profile building and sharing, and more. The service is available worldwide, optimized for more than 2,000 handsets. In mid 2009, mig33 partnered with Indonesia's largest mobile retailer, PT Trikomsel Oke, to begin offering mig33 payment vouchers in OKE's more than 800 retail outlets. Founded in 2005, mig33 is backed by Silicon Valley venture firms Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and DCM. For more information, please visit www.mig33.com.
Linda Fulford of Fulford Public Relations, +65-6324-2268, or mobile, +65-9088-3757, lfulford@fulfordpr.com, for mig33; or Mei Lin Ng of mig33, mobile, +65-8522-6173, mng@mig33global.com