Nokia and Pearson form wireless joint venture
- Source: Global Times
- [03:16 February 03 2010]
- Comments
Mobile education market's potential huge
By Zhao Qian
Mobile device maker Nokia and education company Pearson will form a joint venture targeting English learners in China, and an official from Pearson told the Global Times Tuesday the company will expand such cooperation to other equipment manufacturers in the future.
The joint venture, named Beijing Mobiledu Technologies, was created to accelerate the growth of Mobiledu, a mobile phone-delivered education service developed by Nokia, Pearson announced Monday.
Mobiledu, launched in 2007, is a mobile service that provides English-language learning materials and other educational content. Users can read content through an application preloaded on new Nokia handsets and visit the service's mobile website.
"We also want to cooperate with some other handset (makers) and not just Nokia, though no specific plans have been fixed," Elizabeth Knup, Pearson's chief representative in China, said Tuesday, adding that the company will increase the content it offers to appeal to different learners.
"We already have 20 million subscribers in China since Mobiledu was launched, and we believe that more and more people will study English through mobile phones," Knup said.
Xiao Yan, public relations director of Wall Street English in Beijing, which was purchased by Pearson last year, said Tuesday the company has no plans to use the Mobiledu services at present, but she was also confident in the potential of China's huge education market.
Chinese have been enthusiastic about learning English, especially since the country's successful bid to host the Olympic Games. In Beijing, some schools require students as young as kindergarteners to start learning English.
Mobile user numbers in China have surpassed 700 million since last July, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reported.
Nokia could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Knup said the joint venture will be an independent company, and Nokia and Pearson will just guide it in terms of its business direction.
Knup said the company will seize the potential market in China, and she doesn't "see some immediate competition in this mobile sector in the country at present."
New Oriental, a New York listed provider of private educational services, only offers mobile English newspapers at present.
