SHANGHAI, Nov. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. /quotes/zigman/106656/quotes/nls/sprd SPRD -0.75% , a leading fabless semiconductor provider in China with advanced technology in both 2G and 3G wireless communications standards, today announced a strategic partnership with Sohu.com Inc., China's leading online media, search, gaming, community and mobile service group. Through this partnership, Sohu has developed a mobile app store for Spreadtrum's WRE ("Windows Runtime Environment") platform for feature phones. Sohu will also use the app store, which supports applications both from Sohu and other mobile developers, to deliver rich Internet applications and services to China consumers.
Spreadtrum's WRE platform is middleware for feature phones that enables dynamic loading and updating of applications post-sale, providing the same experience to consumers as smartphone handsets. Sohu has leveraged Spreadtrum's platform to deliver a complete app store solution, including its related server-side operations. Spreadtrum's WRE platform with Sohu's app store solution has been rolled out in volume by one of China's top ten design houses and is now integrated into Spreadtrum's standard feature phone platform solution.
"Sohu.com has more than ten years of experience in delivering applications to more than one hundred million users, and is a leading provider of online applications and games in China," said Dr. Leo Li, Spreadtrum's president and CEO. "By partnering with Sohu.com, we bring together their core competency in Internet services with our strength in feature phone platforms, bringing smartphone and app store capability to the highest volume phone segment in China and emerging markets. This expands Sohu's and other application developers' reach to a larger mobile user base and transforms the traditional definition of feature phones."
Dr. Charles Zhang, Sohu.com Inc's Chairman and CEO, said: "The strategic cooperation with Spreadtrum is far-reaching in impact to the mobile internet industry. As a global top five mobile phone chip supplier, Spreadtrum's customers reach a large user base interested in the mobile Internet experience. By cooperating with Spreadtrum, we can provide a variety of mobile internet services to this group of users, including web, video, microblogging, search, maps and other applications."
Spreadtrum's WRE platform with Sohu.com's app store is now shipping in volume with Spreadtrum's SC6800H chip to one of China's top ten design houses. Spreadtrum expects shipments to grow over the coming quarters.
About Spreadtrum Communications, Inc.
Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. /quotes/zigman/106656/quotes/nls/sprd SPRD -0.75% is a fabless semiconductor company that develops baseband and RF processor solutions for the wireless communications market. Spreadtrum combines its semiconductor design expertise with its software development capabilities to deliver highly integrated baseband processors with multimedia functionality and power management. Spreadtrum has developed solutions based on an open development platform, enabling its customers to develop customized wireless products that are feature-rich to meet their cost and time-to-market requirements. For more information, visit www.spreadtrum.com .
About Sohu.com, Inc.
Sohu.com Inc. is China's premier online brand and indispensable to the daily life of millions of Chinese, providing a network of web properties and community based/web 2.0 products which offer the vast Sohu user community a broad array of choices regarding information, entertainment and communication. Sohu has built one of the most comprehensive matrices of Chinese language web properties and proprietary search engines, consisting of the mass portal and leading online media destination. Sohu corporate services consist of online brand advertising on its matrix of websites as well as bid listing and home page on its in-house developed search directory and engine. Sohu also offers wireless value-added services such as news, information, music, ringtone and picture content sent over mobile phones. Sohu's online game subsidiary, Changyou.com and its subsidiaries currently operate over 10 online games that includes in-house developed MMORPGs, such as Tian Long Ba Bu, one of the most popular online games in China, and Duke of Mount Deer, as well as Web-based games such as DDTank. Sohu.com, established by Dr. Charles Zhang, one of China's internet pioneers, is in its fifteenth year of operation.