Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award Recognises...

RobBrady

Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award Recognises
Appello’s Exceptional Overall Performance

The Frost & Sullivan “2009 European Mobile Phone Based Navigation Market Leadership Award”, is presented to Appello. The company’s innovative strategies have enabled it to emerge a leader in the highly competitive mobile phone based navigation market.

“Appello has grown steadily since 2003 to its current position as the leading provider of complete mobile phone based navigation solutions,” notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Vishnu Muralidharan. “Wisepilot, a customer-centric mobile navigation service solution launched in 2004, has been backed by superior account management and perceptive strategies, supporting the organic growth of the company.”

Navigation capable handset shipments to Europe grew more than 200 per cent in 2008. This trend is expected to continue and result in an exponential growth of 80 million units in 2010. Appello has capitalised on this trend by announcing several key strategic partnerships with telecom operators and handset manufacturers. Currently, Wisepilot is available with 13 telecom operators. Appello has also partnered with deCarta, one of the leading providers of location based services (LBS) platform.

“To ensure maximum reach and provide value to customers, Appello has invested in several innovative strategies; one of them being to offer Wisepilot as a standard preinstalled application on all GPS enabled phones,” comments Muralidharan. “Appello also has an attractive trial offer that allows consumers to learn the functioning of the navigation solution.”

Appello has experimented by offering Wisepilot in different levels of the handset hierarchy. By tracking activation, based on the level at which the solution is placed, the company has been able to position Wisepilot at the appropriate location to provide optimum reach and boost customer awareness. For instance, the company has experienced 85 per cent application trial activation when Wisepilot is placed in the desktop menu and 55 per cent activation when it is placed one level below the desktop.

The company has also seen different levels of activation and conversion rates depending on the handset used; statistics have shown that Wisepilot when offered in blackberry phones have an activation rate of at least 70 per cent. The company has established partnerships with all major handset manufacturers to make sure adaptation of Wisepilot to a new handset can be done ahead of market introduction.

“The company has a simple payment and subscription process and is focusing on providing a rich content based experience for users,” remarks Muralidharan. “Appello employs user statistics to gain information on the features used most frequently by consumers and is constantly working to provide a better solution.”

With regard to branding, Appello offers clients the flexibility to choose either Wisepilot or supply a white label navigation solution. This approach ensures that Appello is able to sell its solution under different brand names and thereby maximise its reach.

Wisepilot has been developed as a thin client system. This has helped the company to provide consumers with a rich graphic user experience. The company has also been developing next generation Wisepilot on Java to ensure that it can be used on all available platforms.

The Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Leadership of the Year is given to the company that has exhibited market share leadership through the implementation of market strategy. The recipient has displayed excellence in all areas of the market leadership process, including the identification of market challenges, drivers and restraints, as well as strategy development and methods of addressing these market dynamics. Furthermore, the Award recipient has continually demonstrated solutions for monitoring market changes and for implementing superior market strategies. By utilising these strategies for success, the company has established itself as the market share leader in its respective industry.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About Appello and Wisepilot
Appello the leading provider of mobile GPS navigation services and offers turn-key solutions to mobile network operators, handset manufacturers and enterprise customers. Appello has developed WISEPILOT® a unique and award-winning navigation platform for mobile devices providing applications to the automotive and telecom industries. Appello's customers include some of the largest mobile network operators, mobile phone manufacturers, telecom distributors, web portals, directory service providers and telecom system integrators. Appello has its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden. For more information, visit www.appello.se | www.wisepilot.com

Appello Contact Information
Leif Sundström, Vice President and General Sales Director

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 31 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com

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