Hutch expands mobile gaming market, offers 400 mobile games

Company release, April 6, 2004

Mumbai

Hutch, Indias only pure play cellular service, is expanding the Mobile Gaming market in India through an offering of over 400 Java-based mobile games, including an exclusive Rahul Dravid cricket game, and exclusive development alliance with gaming company - Mauj. This was announced today by Harit Nagpal, vice-president, Corporate Marketing, Hutch.

Commenting on increasing popularity of mobile gaming in India, Harit Nagpal, said, Humans and games have had a relationship from times immemorial. Then why should it be any different when it comes to mobile phones. Gaming is one of the fastest growing mobile applications today. We have seen this trend internationally, and we are witnessing it now in India. An average of 1,20,000 mobile games are downloaded every month by Hutch users currently. This is a phenomenal 50 fold increase from an average of 2,200 mobile game downloads in February last year. This growth is expected to increase further with increasing penetration of GPRS handsets and applications. Elaborating on the alliance between Hutch and game development companies, Harit Nagpal, said, Hutch holds over 75% of the downloadable mobile gaming market in India today. While most of the mobile games currently have been internationally developed, Indian gaming developers are working on games with Indian themes. We are working closely with leading gaming developers like Mauj - to create mobile games exclusively for Hutch users. We offer over 400 mobile games to our users currently and are adding 2 new games to our existing portfolio daily. We are also launching an exclusive Rahul Dravid cricket game which will be available to Hutch users only.

Mobile Games on Hutch include Rahul Dravid Hutch Cricket 2004, Prince of Persia, Juan Pablo, Montoya racing, Karpov 3D chess, Ninja Kids and Top Gun.

Arun Gupta, Head, MAUJ International, added, Our experience over the last few months has indicated that wireless gaming has finally started growing in India. It is already a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide but has been slow to take off in India until now. With the launch of premium content such as Montoya F1 and Dravid Cricket as well as support from companies such as Hutch, we think it is only a matter of time that India creates a name in this IT related industry as well.

Hutch users can download any of the 400 mobile games using the Hutch GPRS service. Once downloaded, for a price of Rs. 50, the games reside on the Hutch handset and can be played any number of times. Premium games, such as Prince of Persia, are available at a price of Rs. 99 per download.

Hutch has been offering a host of innovative, mobile applications to its users. Hutch is the only cellular service to offer live video-replays of sports and entertainment events such as the India-Pakistan Series 2004; using MMS. Recently Hutch launch a service - Click & Print MMS - that allows Hutch users to have photo prints of their MMS images delivered to any part of India.

About Hutch

Hutchison Essar operates cellular services currently in ten circles covering over three quarters of the countrys purchasing power - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana, and UP (E). Hutchison Essar now has a combined subscriber base of over 4.8 million cellular subscribers. Hutch was recently rated the best mobile service in India by the national TNS survey of mobile users.

For more information, please contact:

Kavita Nair

Hutchison Max Telecom

Orange: 98200 18435 Tel: 022- 56645139

Email: kavita.nair@orange.co.in

www.orange.co.in

Amrit Singh Deo / Sandhya Sadananda

Genesis Public Relations

Orange: 98202 11064/ 98205 41788

Tel: 022 - 5664 5220 / 5660 3027

Email: amrit.deo@orange.co.in

ssadananda@genesispr.com