At the same time, the company announced that its SMS system under trial for Sichuan Unicom, one of China’s major operators, has been accepted for full commercial service deployment.

CMG plc Chairman, Cor Stutterheim, commented:

These twin successes give us a significant lead in the potentially huge Chinese market that is developing rapidly. It follows 18 months of intensive activity by CMG Wireless Data Solutions since opening an office in Beijing and is a tremendous endorsement of both our product and support.

During the final meetings with a group of MII specialists, Mr Qiu Zuyu, the deputy chairman of the Post and Communications Science Committee of MII, concluded that CMG’s SMSC complies with all the requirements from MII and praised the excellent performance, rich functionality and scalability of the SMSC.

Boudewijn Pesch, Managing Director of CMG’s Beijing office, added:

The certification of the system opens up opportunities for Chinese operators and value added service providers to choose CMG’s SMSC product and meet the increasing demand for Short Messaging in China. With close to 70 million mobile users in China, a small increase in messaging behaviour of end users could lead to an explosion in SMS volume. CMG has proven to be a leader in this area in Europe and by sharing our experience with Chinese operators we are able to provide them with the best available solution in the market.

Sichuan Unicom had already shown interest in CMG’s SMS solution, attracted by its ability to handle larger networks and fast-growing traffic volumes. The system was installed last year and is now delivering a full commercial service.

From the headquarters of CMG Wireless Data Solutions in The Netherlands, Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing, Peter Maathuis, commented:

With over 800,000 subscribers today and a considerable growth potential, Unicom’s Sichuan network was a perfect match for our system. There are 60 operators in China; therefore the prospects are very exciting. We have, for instance, already installed trial WAP Service Broker systems within both China Unicom and China Mobile to provide Internet portal facilities.