M2B Enters China Market in Strategic Agreement With Baidu
June 04 2009 - 12:43AM
PR Newswire (US)
US-listed broadband entertainment company launches WOWtv in China
to tap into online advertising market and partners leading Chinese
search engine for internet traffic HOLLYWOOD, Calif., June 4
/PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Amaru, Inc. (AMRU) has announced that its
subsidiary, M2B World Asia Pacific Pte Ltd (M2B), Asia's leading
broadband entertainment provider, has entered into a strategic
agreement with Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology, a
wholly owned subsidiary of Baidu.com, Inc., the world's leading
Chinese language internet search provider. This partnership with
Chinese search engine giant Baidu (http://www.baidu.com/) involves
M2B making available a WOWtv site customized for China
(http://cn.wowtv.com)and/ streaming free and legal video content
from M2B's infrastructure. Baidu, in turn, will drive internet
traffic to the Chinese WOWtv site upon its launch. This partnership
will enable M2B to expand its worldwide viewership and generate
additional advertising revenue by tapping into the fast growing
online video and advertising markets in China. "We recently
launched the WOWtv Global site and continue to aggressively pursue
our expansion plans in China through this strategic alliance with
Baidu," said Colin Binny, President and CEO of Amaru, Inc. and M2B
World Asia Pacific. "Despite the current economic downturn, we see
this period as an opportunity for us to grow our broadband
businesses by harnessing the rapidly growing online advertising
market as an increasing number of large scale advertisers start
looking online due to tighter marketing budgets." According to a
2008 report by the China Internet Network Information Center, there
are close to 180 million online video users in mainland China and
online video is the second most popular internet application used
there. M2B will offer Baidu.com's search engine users a range of
free and legal online movies, TV series and variety shows via
video-on-demand streaming on the Chinese version of WOWtv. Users
can look forward to watching WOWtv's most popular programs like
travel series Estelle's Paradise, fashion videos from Video Fashion
Network, Thai movies and award-winning Chinese short films. All the
content on the Chinese language site will be made available with
Mandarin subtitles. The Chinese version of WOWtv was launched on 15
May 2009. M2B is in the process of integration with Baidu for
generating traffic to the new site. For more information on WOWtv,
visit the global site at http://www.wowtv.com/, Singapore site at
http://sg.wowtv.com/ and Chinese site at http://cn.wowtv.com/.
About Amaru Inc. Amaru, Inc., through its subsidiaries under the
M2B brand, is a leader in the Broadband Media Entertainment
business, and a major provider of interactive
Entertainment-on-demand streaming over Broadband channels, Internet
portals, and 3G devices. To date, the company has launched
Broadband TV websites featuring Hollywood and Asian entertainment,
with multiple channels designed to cater to various consumer
segments and lifestyles. Its content covers diverse genres such as
movies, dramas, comedies, documentaries, music, fashion, lifestyle,
edutainment, and more. The M2B brand has established its
competitive edge by offering access to an expansive range of
content libraries for aggregation, distribution and syndication on
Broadband and other media; including rights for merchandising,
product branding, promotion and publicity. For more information,
visit http://www.amaruinc.com/. About Baidu.com, Inc. Baidu.com,
Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a
technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best way
for people to find information. In addition to serving Internet
search users, Baidu provides an effective platform for businesses
to reach potential customers. Baidu's ADSs, each of which
represents one Class A ordinary share, currently trade on the
NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU". For more
information, visit http://www.baidu.com/. This press release
contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to change.
The information posted in this release may contain forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by use of the
words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates,"
"continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar
expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties
include, but are not limited to, growth and demand for broadband
services, the unproven nature of the advertising model, the ability
to execute content deals on favorable terms, government controls on
media in various regions, the ability to manage rapid growth,
disruptions to networks, competitors and new entrants, changes in
product mix, our efforts to establish independent broadband sites
in countries where conditions are suitable, our ability to expand
our offerings of content and various other factors beyond the
Company's control. For media enquiries, please contact: Alexis Ng
Senior Marketing Manager M2B World Asia Pacific Pte Ltd Tel:
+65-6332-9421 Email: DATASOURCE: Amaru, Inc. CONTACT: Alexis Ng,
Senior Marketing Manager of M2B World Asia Pacific Pte Ltd,
+65-6332-9421, , for Amaru, Inc. Web Site: http://www.amaruinc.com/
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