Press Releases

China Unicom Selects ACCESS’ Multimedia Messaging Software

Software to be adopted by more than 10 mobile phone manufacturers including Samsung, Motorola and LG

Tokyo, Japan/Fremont, USA/Oberhausen, Germany – February 19, 2003 – ACCESS Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange 4813), a global provider of integrated data platforms and Internet access technologies for the mobile communications market, announced that its multimedia messaging software has been adopted by more than 10 mobile phone manufacturers including Samsung, Motorola and LG, all of whom are supplying mobile phones featuring multimedia mail support running on a CDMA 2000 1X network. China United Telecommunications Corporation, the second largest mobile telecommunication operator in mainland China, will start providing this service in the next few months.

The license agreement was signed between ACCESS’ subsidiary in China, ACCESS China Inc., and each of the mobile phone manufacturers and is based on a cooperative agreement signed between China Unicom and ACCESS in August of last year. ACCESS’ multimedia messaging software is based on its NetFront^® browser technology developed for consumer information appliances. Mobile phones equipped with MMS software are able to transmit image-attached e-mail messages, a service widely used in Europe and Japan.

“We are very pleased to be able to provide our multimedia messaging software to the manufacturers of mobile phones for China Unicom’s CDMA 2000 1X network, the development of which was based on our cooperative agreement with China Unicom. We believe that the multifunction e-mail features for mobile phones, widely used in Japan and Europe, will also be accepted in the Chinese market and that it will become indispensable to the lifestyle of end-users in China,” said Toru Arakawa, president and chief executive officer of ACCESS Co., Ltd.

About China Unicom
China Unicom is China’s second largest mobile telecommunication operator engaged in mobile phone, long-distance telephone, pager and data communication operations. China Unicom is the only company holding CDMA network operation license throughout mainland China and launched its CDMA service in January 2002. The company boasts over 65 million mobile phone subscribers of which CDMA mobile phone users account for over 7 million.

About ACCESS
ACCESS Co. Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with ACCESS Systems America, Inc., its US subsidiary, in Fremont, California, ACCESS Systems Europe GmbH, its German subsidiary, in Oberhausen, Germany, and with ACCESS (Beijing) Co., Ltd, its Chinese subsidiary, in Beijing, China. ACCESS is a leading global provider of software and services for IP-based consumer electronic devices. ACCESS’ embedded NetFront^® and Compact NetFront^® browsers power 191 different commercial products worldwide including mobile phones, digital televisions, set-top boxes, game consoles, PDAs, car navigation systems, web phones, kiosk terminals and intranet terminals. ACCESS’ Compact NetFront microbrowser is most widely deployed in phones for NTT DoCoMo’s popular i-modeTM service. To date, almost 80 million ACCESS software licenses have shipped from more than 40 major Internet device manufactures (As of November, 2002). ACCESS was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market on February 26, 2001. More information is available at www.access.co.jp/english/.

ACCESS is a registered trademark in Japan. NetFront, Compact NetFront are registered trademarks of ACCESS Co., Ltd. in Japan. NetFront is a registered trademark of NetFront Communications, Inc. in the United States and is used under license. i-mode and FOMA are registered trademarks of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

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