Voice - enabled Mobile Value Added Services reaches out to over 280 million subscribers in India
Nuance Voice Search reaches out in 15 major Indian languages

Nuance Communications, Inc, (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced that OnMobile, a leading Indian telecom technology, applications, content and commerce services provider, has completed the largest global deployment of Nuance speech solutions for telecom value-added services (VAS). OnMobile, the highest value-added services revenue generator for operators in India, provides services to leading Indian telecom operators, including Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL and Tata Indicom.

OnMobile offers a multi-purpose VAS platform featuring a voice portal, ringback tones, M-commerce and mobile marketing. Powered by Nuance Voice Search, OnMobile’s portals deliver voice-enabled data and search calls to more than 280 million subscribers in India and more than 350 million users globally.

By partnering with Nuance to develop a complete and comprehensive language model for the Indian market, OnMobile now deploys services that support 15 major Indian languages - English, Hindi, Kannada, Telegu, Tamil, Malayalam ,Marathi, Gujarathi, Rajashthani, Punjabi, Haryanvi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Assamese and Oriya. With Nuance Voice Search, this system lets Indian consumers simply state their request in their native language, browse the results and then download available content, rather than having to type in keywords or commands on a small mobile phone keypad. OnMobile was one of the first companies to create VAS voice portals with speech recognition, and advanced the industry by delivering VAS portals that enabled Indian consumers to interact with automated services in their native language. With increasing end user familiarity with such services the technology will find more usage.

“We believe speech recognition technology has huge potential in the Indian market, and we’re continuing to build on our strategic relationship with Nuance to deliver a quality, cost-effective service with a simple user interface to our millions of customers,” said Mouli Raman, CTO and Co-Founder, OnMobile. “Voice portals have experienced rapid market adoption, typically 10 percent of an operator’s user base within four to six months and approximately 25 to 30 percent of the base within the first year. By introducing unique speech-based features, we’re making these portals more interactive and easier to use, thereby enhancing market adoption and driving ARPU for nearly every telecom operator in India.”

India is recognized as one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world with about 300 million people now owning mobile & wire line phones and this subscriber base that is growing by seven to eight million users per month. In the last financial year, India added more mobile-phone users per month than China, and now one in every five Indian has access to a mobile device. In addition to the Indian market, OnMobile is continuing to expand in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, UAE and other countries in the Asia Pacific region by leveraging Nuance speech recognition solutions to support multiple regional languages, including Regional Accent English, Malay, Thai, Bhasa, Urdu, Malay.

“Telecommunications carriers are increasingly looking to advanced speech solutions as a means of differentiating their services, driving new revenue, and improving customer loyalty,” said Michael Thompson, Vice President and General Manager, Mobile Search and Communication, Nuance. “OnMobile was one of the first companies to create voice portals with speech recognition, and we look forward to helping OnMobile expand its market lead with new and unique speech-enabled features.”