Carriers are realizing the undeniable value of offering backup protection for their subscribers’ mobile phone contacts,” said Brent Iadarola, Global Research Director for Mobile and Wireless at Frost and Sullivan. “However, there still remains a general lack of awareness among users about backup services. FusionOne provides carriers with a real opportunity to educate subscribers by providing a value-added service such as MightyBackup. This will in turn improve the overall end-user experience and reduce customer churn.”

According to a survey conducted in the fall by FusionOne, 70% of participants rated the backup of their mobile phone contacts as very or extremely important. However, 67% of those surveyed do not have their address book backed up anywhere and 66% re-enter contacts manually when replacing their phone. This represents a significant opportunity for carriers in a largely untapped market.

“A growing number of subscribers rely on their mobile phones as their primary means of communicating with friends and family, so the prospect of having to manually re-create an entire address book is quite daunting,” said Mohan Sadashiva, senior vice president of marketing, FusionOne. “With MightyBackup that’s no longer the case. Restoring contacts is an easy, painless process for subscribers. For carriers, it provides an opportunity to provide a valuable service to their customer base, retain the approximately 40% of industry revenue that comes from subscription applications such as backup, and enhance consumer loyalty.”

FusionOne’s MightyBackup service, which is used by numerous global carriers, protects more than 500 million mobile phone contacts. MightyBackup, built on the robust and patented FusionOne Mobile Platform, wirelessly backs up the mobile phone address book to FusionOne’s secure data center, keeps the information continually up-to-date and automatically transfers the records when the user replaces or upgrades their mobile phone. The affordable service enables online management of the address book, automatic recovery of the information and secure protection for the valuable contact information stored on a user’s mobile phone. MightyBackup is available on the Symbian, BREW and Java platforms.

The MightyBackup service is launched as a carrier-branded application, with pricing determined by the carrier.

About FusionOne

FusionOne offers a suite of premier mobile applications that help consumers protect and manage the personal content on their mobile phones, including contacts, calendar, photos, music and messages. FusionOne pioneered mobile phone backup and currently offers the industry’s leading backup service supporting millions of customers, currently offered on 15 wireless carriers worldwide. FusionOne is an established leader for mobile content backup through its patented wireless synchronization platform and its close relationships with key industry associations including the Open Mobile Alliance, Qualcomm BREW Developer’s group and the Symbian Connectivity Partner Program. Founded in 1998, FusionOne is headquartered in San Jose, California with additional offices in Tallinn, Estonia.