Zain, a leading mobile telecom group in the Middle East and Africa, and Kirusa, the world's leading vendor of Voice SMS and a leading developer of mobile value added services, have signed a framework agreement for supply of the popular Kirusa Voice SMS solution to the Zain Group. This agreement will enable the Zain group, with mobile carriers across twenty-two countries, to source Voice SMS solution from Kirusa. This landmark agreement will shorten the deployment cycle, and accelerate the availability of the innovative Voice SMS messaging service to mobile users in the Middle East and Africa.

Kirusa is a pioneer of the Voice SMS solution, a fast-growing service that allows customers to record and send messages by speaking. A user simply dials * followed by the recipient's number and speaks a short message. The recipient gets an SMS notification from the sender and can dial a number in the notification to directly access the spoken message.

Voice SMS is attracting customers from different geographies across the globe and has positioned itself firmly as a fast-growing, voice-based mobile messaging solution in the industry. It is a new messaging paradigm providing asynchronous communication with voice. It is faster, easier, more personal and can be added to the wireless infrastructure with minimal impact.

The agreement was signed after Kirusa successfully conducted a pilot Voice SMS project at a Zain carrier and demonstrated ability to provide customers with a convenient and cost-effective way to connect with friends, family and business colleagues with a scalable solution that can serve the needs of operators of all sizes within the Zain group. Kirusa's International Voice SMS capability allows mobile customers to send a Voice SMS to people across the globe without having to worry about time zone differences or the high cost of international voice calling. The recipient is able to retrieve the International Voice SMS with a local call, and reply to it easily.

Under this agreement, Kirusa will provide Zain a full turnkey Voice SMS solution with best-in-class user features that works for all generations and types of networks. Kirusa’s cost-effective solution easily integrates with existing network, messaging and billing infrastructures to quickly begin building new revenues. Its deployment will lower the cost of communication for Zain's customers, while providing a greater brand exposure for Zain across the region. All Zain carriers will also have the option to participate in the International Voice SMS service, expanding the reach of the service into twenty-two additional countries across Middle East and Africa.

Tito Alai, Chief Commercial Officer of Zain Group says that Voice SMS augments value added offerings for Zain’s combined customer base of over 56 million. “We firmly believe that Voice SMS is a strategic fit for us and we are confident that Zain's implementation of Kirusa's Voice SMS solution will assist our mobile operations in increasing their average revenue per user (ARPU) and in substantially differentiating our services,” he adds.

According to Dr. Inderpal Singh Mumick, CEO of Kirusa,  Kirusa Voice SMS has seen major success in Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and LatAm markets. “Over the past few months, we have invested significantly in developing our service delivery. The decision by Zain group to select Kirusa is a validation of our strategy. Kirusa is well positioned to deliver to carriers across Africa and Middle East with the best-in-class product and advanced feature sets like International Voice SMS, Voice SMS Exchange, Convergent Voice SMS, Brew and Java clients," he says.

Kirusa Voice SMS based applications like Broadcast, Alert, and Contests can now reach the entire Middle East and Africa region, presenting a huge opportunity for third party application developers who would like to reach mobile subscribers in emerging markets.

Kirusa is the world's leading vendor of Voice SMS and a leading developer of mobile value added services. Its solutions include the hugely successful KV.SMST, the world's most advanced "Voice SMS" solution that has been selected by more than thirty carriers around the world.  Kirusa's solution works on all handsets and networks, and offers the industry's most intuitive user interface, with features such as DirectListenT for direct access and reply to messages, Speed CodesT for quickly sending messages, group messaging, mobile number portability, background music, interconnection, international Voice SMS.

Kirusa has been recognized as one of top 100 technology companies by Silicon India for years 2007 and 2008, and one of top 25 emerging technology companies by Smart Techie magazine.

Zain is a leading emerging markets player in the field of telecommunications aiming to become one of the top ten mobile operators in the world by 2011. Zain was established in 1983 in Kuwait as the region's first mobile operator. Since 2003, it has grown significantly becoming the 4th largest mobile network in the world in terms of geographic presence with a footprint in 22 countries spread across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data services to 56.3 million active customers (as at 30 September 2008).

For more, please visit www.zain.com; email info@zain.com or contact Kirusa’s Anju Thakral Makin Alchemy Corporate Communications Tel: +91 98101 70135 anju_makin@alchemycc.com