Teletouch Communications, Inc. (AMEX:TLL) today announced that
Teletouch CEO, T. A. "Kip" Hyde, Jr., in a meeting with analysts
and investors here, outlined a fundamental shift in the Company's
strategic direction for the upcoming fiscal year 2007 toward
providing new cellular and other wireless products and services to
both consumer and enterprise customers. The three initial growth
strategies and related sales programs outlined include: reselling
new Cingular(R) Wireless "Push To Talk" and other cellular services
under an agent agreement with Teletouch affiliate, Progressive
Concepts, Inc. (PCI); providing cellular marketing and
infrastructure solutions for large brands and retail chains; and
establishing national distribution for entirely new mobile
multimedia content and related applications not currently available
in the U.S. market, including movies, TV shows, music videos and
casual games, among other mobile lifestyle products and services.
Hyde began by stating, "Growth in the multi-billion dollar mobile
services market continues to be among the highest and most
promising areas of sustained technology and revenue development in
the United States today. Around the globe, new cellular and other
wireless content and data services are rapidly emerging, with these
digital technologies driving the creation of whole new categories
of communications services. Our focus will be offering innovative
and effective wireless outsourcing solutions for clients around the
country and identifying key areas of mobile-oriented growth, by
leveraging our long-term core competencies in providing highly
reliable wireless infrastructure, products and services to both
consumers and businesses, in new and meaningful ways." "For
example, at our most basic wireless sales level, virtually all of
our commercial two-way radio customers also have a cellular
provider. Many of these customers have asked for an alternative to
their typically older and more expensive Sprint-Nextel cellular
plans. By working through our sister company, PCI, Teletouch now
has the ability to satisfy these requests with the newest,
industry-leading Cingular Push To Talk services, as well as more
traditional cellular services, and still maintain direct billing
and customer service control of these customers under PCI's unique
distribution relationship with Cingular." Hyde continued, "In
addition, even our traditional two-way radio business is quickly
evolving, with new VoIP (Voice-over-Internet-Protocol) applications
allowing radio users to interconnect seamlessly via wireless
broadband internet technologies. Given its historical cost
effectiveness and reliability, we believe that conventional two-way
radio services will continue to be used for many years to come.
However, digital technologies dramatically increase the
functionality of currently installed systems, providing expanded
data-capable networks, as well as increasing the portability and
usefulness of the communication devices themselves. Through our
long-term relationships with Motorola and others, the Company is
now able to deliver these enhanced digital services to its two-way
radio customers." Moving to a discussion of Teletouch's second
major growth strategy, providing outsourced cellular-based
marketing and infrastructure solutions for national retail chains
and brands, Hyde explained, "We have specifically identified and
contacted a number of large retailers and consumer brands that have
a desire to 'mobilize' their unique brands and more actively and
directly communicate with their customers via the cellular handset,
including integration to their current web presence. They see the
enormous potential and positive impact that "one-on-one" marketing
via the customers' own cell phones can have on growing their
businesses. Whether through the delivery of electronic coupons,
time sensitive promotional messages, delivery of branded content or
most importantly, the ability to drive instant purchase decisions
through the customer's handset, the "third screen" (after the TV's
"first" and PC's "second" screens) is now an area of enormous
importance and value for large retailers and brands." Hyde added,
"However, many retailers and brands rarely have the time or spare
resources to go through the steep learning curve and hard-dollar
investment required to sort through and implement the myriad of
cellular components required to mobilize the brand. For example,
decisions will include which handsets, carriers, content, MVNE
(Mobile Virtual Network Enabler), billing and content delivery
platforms to use. Then add, for example, development of new web,
WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and SMS (Short Messaging
Service) applications, integration of CRM (Customer Relationship
Management) integration tools and other related products and
services now available, much less support the custom applications
that need to be built for their unique brand characteristics, and
retailers that want to create a mobile component to their brands
are faced with a daunting task." "Teletouch aims to fill this void,
by providing turnkey cellular marketing and infrastructure
solutions, including integrating unique branding, web and WAP
infrastructure design and implementation, as well as promotional,
advertising and branded-content delivery services. This will
provide major retailers the opportunity to fully mobilize their
brands, and create brand-specific customer experiences in the
cellular 'mobile lifestyle' space. Both within Teletouch and
through our affiliate company, PCI, we will now have the ability to
provide a full suite of retail-oriented wireless and web-based
products and services. As a result, Teletouch will now be able
offer innovative and effective wireless outsourcing solutions for
major retail and consumer branded clients around the country." "Our
third major growth initiative is to establish wholesale
distribution relationships for emerging, but proven, cellular
rich-media content providers, and deliver their products and
services nationwide. For example, having identified our first
potential direct partner-provider (to be announced later this
year), we will be working with them to help launch in the U.S. a
number of 'first-of-their-kind' mobile content and rich-media
services that let customers get full-length movies, videos, music,
games and more for their mobile phones." Hyde concluded, "Wireless
communications is one of the largest industries in the world, yet
it is always growing, evolving, changing. By definition, change
creates new opportunities. Coming off our first profitable quarter
since 2003, and having recast the faltering telemetry business into
a now profitable data hosting model that is readily expandable,
Teletouch hasn't been in a better position to realize these many
potential opportunities for some time. We look forward to working
much more closely with our commonly-owned affiliate company, PCI in
the upcoming fiscal year, and with renewed strength and vitality,
work to create a fresh and dynamic platform for long-term
sustainable growth." About Teletouch Communications Teletouch
offers a comprehensive suite of telecommunications services,
including cellular, two-way radio communications, GPS-telemetry and
wireless messaging services throughout the United States. TLL
acquires, bills and supports a large, primarily commercial business
and government base of subscribers, under its own network of FCC
licensed spectrum in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama,
Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida. Teletouch's common
stock is traded on the American Stock Exchange under stock symbol:
TLL. Additional information about Teletouch can be found at:
www.teletouch.com. About Progressive Concepts, Inc. In continuous
operation for over 30-years, privately-held PCI is a leading
provider of cellular voice, data, and entertainment products and
branded wireless services to individuals, businesses, and
government agencies through its chain of retail stores (Hawk
Electronics), branded sub-agents and direct sales force throughout
Texas and Arkansas. PCI provides the cellular services on the
Cingular Wireless network, and maintains its own billing, data and
customer service operations for its nearly 100,000 subscribers,
businesses and other licensed clients. PCI also operates a
significant wholesale distribution business serving smaller
cellular and automotive retailers, car dealers and cellular service
providers throughout the country. More information about PCI and
Hawk Electronics can be found at www.hawkelectronics.com. The
registered trademarks Cingular, Cingular Wireless and any
derivatives thereof are fully owned by, and all copyrighted and
copyrightable materials, including, without limitation, the design,
text, graphics, pictures, sound files and other files, and the
selection and arrangement thereof are ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright
(C) 1996-2006 Cingular Wireless II LLC and/or its licensors.
SPRINT, the "Going Forward" logo, the NEXTEL name and logo, and
other trademarks are owned and registered trademarks of Sprint
Nextel. MOTOROLA is registered in the US Patent & Trademark
Office. Any and all product or service names discussed in relation
to Teletouch Communications, Inc., Progressive Concepts, Inc., Hawk
Electronics and any other affiliates are the property of their
respective owners. All statements in this news release that are not
based on historical fact are "forward-looking statements" within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
and the provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as
amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as
amended (which Sections were adopted as part of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). While management has
based any forward-looking statements contained herein on its
current expectations, the information on which such expectations
were based may change. These forward-looking statements rely on a
number of assumptions concerning future events and are subject to a
number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which
are outside of our control, that could cause actual results to
materially differ from such statements. Such risks, uncertainties,
and other factors include, but are not necessarily limited to,
those set forth under the caption "Additional Factors That May
Affect Our Business" in the Company's most recent Form 10-K and
10-Q filings, and amendments thereto. In addition, we operate in a
highly competitive and rapidly changing environment, and new risks
may arise. Accordingly, investors should not place any reliance on
forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. We
disclaim any intention to, and undertake no obligation to, update
or revise any forward-looking statement.
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