2007/10/23

The Joint Venture of KKBOX and Chung-Hwa Telecom on digital music service

Taiwan Telecom Giant Moves to Promote Online Music Aggressively TAIPEI, Taiwan, Oct. 24 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- KKBOX -- a digital music subsidiary of Skysoft Inc. -- announced today the reaching of a strategic investment deal with Taiwan’s telecom giant Chung-Hwa Telecom (NYSE: CHT), during which CHT will make an undisclosed amount of cash investment to assume its 30% stake. This Joint-Venture marks a new market paradigm for the digital music industry in Taiwan.

Launched in Jan. 2005, KKBOX has successfully won credits on its unique blend of conventional subscriptiondownload model with strong and exclusive social-networking features; it differentiates itself from other music download service providers by offering an array of services for millions of users to legitimately listen to music,including unlimited music streaming, creating their own music blogs, sharing their playlists and making new friends based on their interests. Being the world’s largest collection of Chinese songs, its database offers content from over 140 music labels with 1.5 million songs. KKBOX has become Taiwan’s top music download services provider with close to 300,000 paying subscribers and over 3.5 million registered users as of July 2007.

CHT currently dominates over 85% of Taiwan’s consumer broadband internet access market, and is a leader
in the nation’s mobile 2.5G and 3G phone service subscribers. CHT announced continued revenue growth in a recent report with a majority generated from its 4.17m broadband household subscribers and 8.56m mobile subscribers. It is believed that through this new investment, KKBOX will receive immediate positive impact on sales and profit through tighter integration with CHT’s existing broadband and online-payment infrastructure,as well as its nationwide distribution channel.

With the CHT’s JV-cooperation, KKBOX is planning on new business models to drive more customers by extending its services from the existing PC platform to mobile phones and digital home appliances.

KKBOX Inc., operates with its mission to focus on investing and developing digital music applications and products, and is eyeing the huge business opportunities ahead in the digital music industry.Institutional investors in KKBOX Inc. include: Adobe Systems, China Development Industrial Bank, ChungHwa Telecom, Dwango, Orix Corp. and TransCosmos Inc. etc.

KKBOX Website:http://www.kkbox.com/

Media contact:
Ms. Eva Lau
Veda International Corp.
Tel:+886-2-2704-3024 Ext.126
Email: eva@veda.com.tw

KKBOX Inc.
Tel: +886-2-2655-0369
Email: bd@kkbox.com

SOURCE KKBOX Inc.

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