"This is a clear endorsement of our business model by our investors," said Tan Meng Wee, Deputy Chairman, Orange Gum. "Even though we are based in Singapore, we manage to penetrate mobile service market in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines to sell our content. This is no small feat for a team of 20 people, especially under the extremely challenging economic environment. We are very glad that Orange Gum has been able to work with many supportive customers and suppliers."

Orange Gum' s management explained that the new fund is part of a series of equity tranches its shareholders have committed to support the company' s regional business acceleration programme. The company is focusing this year on expanding its existing mobile content and portal services in the large mobile consumer markets of Shanghai and Guangzhou in China, Taiwan Philippines and Thailand. These 4 countries have more than 250 million mobile phone subscribers and the numbers is still growing rapidly.

"The next 12 months is going to be a very exciting time for mobile content market. Asian consumer demand for colour content, polyphonic ringtones and java games will be coming out strongly with the proliferation of new colour multimedia phones. We believe we are in a very nice position to ride on this growth,"said Toh Khai Hwa, President (South East Asia), Orange Gum. "Our overseas marketing efforts could not have taken off without the strong support of government agencies such as IE Singapore and IDA. These guys have really gone all the way out to help us go abroad."

Orange Gum' s revenue for the financial year ended 31 December 2002 was approximately $1.6m, a strong increase compared to the previous financial year. The company expects 2003 to register strong growth in mobile content revenue and profitability.

In operations since 2000, Orange Gum Pte Ltd (www.orangegum.com) provides expert mobility enabling services for enterprise partners, and develops, aggregates and delivers premium mobile content and wireless Internet services through mobile carriers to consumers in Asia. Orange Gum aggregates contents from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and the US. It distributes content through its carrier network which includes China Mobile, China Unicom, Taiwan Cellular, Chung Hwa Telecom, Far Eastone, KG Telecom, Mobitai, Trans Asia, CSL, Hutchison, Smartone, Sunday, Peoples, New World Mobility, Singtel, Mobileone, Starhub, Globe, Smart, DTAC and Maxis. Orange Gum' s mobile content delivery platform m.Ark is being deployed by customers such as NEC, Kyocera, Samsung and ACCS. The company is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Taipei.

About M-Commerce Ventures Pte Ltd

Launched in September 2000, M-Commerce Ventures Pte Ltd ("MCV") is managed by EDB Investments Pte Ltd. The fund invests in companies providing innovative products/services and technology in the emerging mobile/wireless communication space. Key investors in this fund include EDB Investments Pte Ltd, Siemens Venture Capital GmbH, Global TIMES Ventures Holding GmbH and Co. K G (managed by T-Venture Holding GmbH), CTI (H) Pte Ltd (Creative Technology), Infosys Technologies Limited, Infocomm Investments Pte Ltd (investment arm of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore), Pacific Century Regional Developments Limited and Keppel Communications Pte Ltd. For more information, refer to (http://www.edbi.com)

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY, FTSE: 6701q.l, TSE: 6701) is one of the world's leading providers of broadband and mobile Internet solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse and global base of customers. Ranked as a Global Fortune 500(R) company and one of the world's top patent-producing companies, the NEC group delivers tailored solutions in the core technologies and services required in a networked world, ranging from advanced semiconductor solutions, to high-speed, large-capacity mission critical systems, system integration, and broadband and mobile technologies. The NEC group employs more than 140,000 people worldwide and had net sales of approximately $39 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2002. For additional information, please visit the NEC home page at http://www.nec.com .

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