Exclusive: WiderThan Preparing To Do An IPO; Hires New President

WiderThan Americas, the U.S. mobile content subsidiary/affiliate of Korean wireless giant SK Telecom, is preparing for an IPO on Nasdaq, MocoNews.net has learned. It is about ready to file an S-1 and has just hired a new CEO global president, F. Terry Kremian, who recently resigned as the COO of wireless infrastructure company Syniverse. He’ll be heading the company global efforts through the U.S. market listing.
The Korea-based parent WiderThan is almost synonymous with ringback tones, having pioneered it in Korea, but has been trying to expand beyond that into the general mobile content market. In March this year, it launched its WiderMusic Service Platform.
In October 2004, WiderThan made a move to extend its reach into the US with the acquisition of its long-time partner Ztango. Client wins include South Korea’s SK Telecom, T-Mobile USA, Israel’s Orange, the Philippines’ Globe Telecom and Taiwan’s APBW.
WiderThanAmericas will join a select group of mobile content pureplays which have gone public. In U.S., Jamdat is among the only one which comes to mind. There are other Chinese players like Linktone and others listed on Nasdaq too.
And then, 2-3 others are widely expected to file this year. Among them, Mforma, Digital Chocolate, GluMobile (fka Sorrent), I-Play, among others

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