Celltick and ESPN Partner to Bring New Sports Experience on Mobile Devices in Brazil

ESPN to release a sports-oriented start screen experience for Android based on Celltick Start

San Francisco, Calif. – Celltick, a global leader in mobile initiated commerce, today announced its partnership with ESPN Brazil to bring sports fans a unique mobile experience on the start screen. The ESPN-branded Start will allow users to personalize the first screen on their devices with the latest sports scores and news and themes based on their favorite sports teams and players, allowing them to have instant updates on the start screen. Aside from receiving exclusive ESPN sports content, sports fans will enjoy speed dial, shortcuts to their favorite apps, and a quick preview into their own selected favorite social networks and content streams.

Sports play a significant part in the everyday lives of Brazilians, and are widely played and popular among the vast majority of the population. Brazil is also poised to be the center of sporting attention over the next three years as it plays host to the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Celltick’s Start is the next-generation in start screen technology, providing intelligent and dynamic functionality so Android users can get the most from their mobile phones. With Celltick Start, users can easily personalize their devices and organize content according to what matters most, while the Start recommendation engine learns and adapts the start screen to what users use most on their device.

“We wanted to bring a new mobile experience to the sports fans of Brazil to enjoy ESPN on the go at every glance on their mobile,” said Luis Olivalves, New Business Director of ESPN Brazil. “By utilizing Celltick’s Start we are able to offer our fans a way to personalize their mobile phones while enjoying exclusive access to our great content. With Brazil being the center of a number of sporting events in the next few years, this provides an amazing experience to all our sporting fans.”

“We all want to have live sporting events and sports scores on the first screen of our mobile devices,” said Ronen Daniel, CEO of Celltick. “We are excited and proud to partner with ESPN Brazil to provide a new branded mobile experience to millions of sports fans. We plan to develop an ecosystem of distribution and partnerships around this initiative to give sports fans the very best in offers, features and content.”

With this partnership, Celltick continues to expand its reach beyond the core market community. Celltick’s Start benefits the entire mobile industry ecosystem, bringing value to media companies as well as handset manufacturers and operators. In 2012, Celltick powered billions of mobile-initiated commerce transactions for virtual and physical goods serving more than 140 million active consumers across 25 countries.

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About ESPN Brazil

In 2013 the ESPN brand celebrates 24 years in Brazil. The worldwide leader in sports, ESPN came to Brazil in 1989 and was the first Brazilian pay-TV sports channel. Six years later, in 1995, the company created Brasil ESPN. In April 2009, ESPN HD was launched, broadcasting in high definition. In 2012, ESPN HD has been renamed to ESPN+ and ESPN Brazil HD launched. Today, besides TV, ESPN has expanded its presence in Brazil on the Internet (ESPN.com.br and WatchESPN), radio, on espn.com/radio, mobile telephones (WatchESPN) and events (X Games, ESPN Ao Ar Livre, ESPN Corpore Circuit).ESPN Brasil belongs to the ESPN International network that was established in 1988 as a division of ESPN Inc. for markets outside the USA. 80% of ESPN is owned by ABC, Inc., which is an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The Hearst Corporation holds a 20% stake in ESPN.

About Celltick

Celltick is a global leader in mobile initiated commerce. Celltick’s Start is a next generation personalized intelligent interface for Android devices. Celltick is unique in creating and managing mass market mobile marketing solutions for mobile operators, large media companies, device manufacturers and large brands. Celltick enables its partners to engage and monetize their users on the mobile. The company drives billions of transactions annually across more than 140 million active consumers across its different mobile platforms in over 25 countries. A rapidly growing company, Celltick has subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, South America and the U.S. For more information, visit www.celltick.com.