Wireless Developer Network - Daily News

[ View Today's WirelessDeveloper NewsWire ]
Today's News | WirelessDevNet DevZones | Yesterday's News | Submit News | News-"wireless" Top Stories! | Classifieds | Around-The-Web | Wireless DevZones!

Real Madrid effect: Sports sponsoring boosts Siemens brand Mobile phone market share in Spain grows from 17 to 21 percent in one year; The positive effects of sponsoring Formula 1, football and mountain biking Sports sponsoring by Siemens is working: Within one year, brand awareness levels have soared in Europe and Asia. In Spain, for example, where 62 out of every 100 surveyed know about Siemens from football sponsoring, nearly twice as many as a year before. The market share held by Siemens mobile phones there rose from 17 to 21 percent during the past 12 months, with Siemens advancing from 3rd to 2nd place. Siemens' supported brand awareness in Europe increased from 81 to 84 Percent. In Asia, too, Siemens has moved up to number among the region's most well known sponsors. These numbers were announced today by Rolf Beisswanger to mark the first anniversary of the sponsoring agreement with Spain's top club, Real Madrid. Beisswanger heads up the global sponsoring activities of Siemens mobile, the mobile communication segment at Siemens. For the past year, the Real Madrid players have been wearing jerseys bearing the Siemens mobile logo. Since then, public awareness of this brand has risen worldwide, especially in those countries that have a national star on the Real Madrid team. Ronaldo is a good example of this in Brazil, where Siemens has lifted its share of the GSM mobile phone market to over 60 percent. Football sponsoring in China is also paying off handsomely. In just the few short months since it began sponsoring the Chinese national team and the Chinese Football League, Siemens mobile has become one of the front-runners there in terms of sponsor awareness. A positive effect can also be seen from the company's involvement in Formula 1 racing and its technology partnership with West McLaren Mercedes: Over 50 percent of Formula 1 fans in Europe know Siemens as a sponsor of this racing series. "We focus first and foremost on mass-market sports like Formula 1 and football, and we align our portfolio to cover growth markets like China," explains Rolf Beisswanger. "With our involvement in professional mountain biking, we're going with the right sport in the U.S.A., one that enables us to reach the target group of young trendsetters." Siemens mobile is active in European football and sponsors the following clubs: As the jersey sponsor of Real Madrid (Spain), Girondins de Bordeaux (France), Aalborg BK (Denmark) and as a co-sponsor of FC Bayern München (Germany), of Juventus Turin (Italy) and Chelsea (England). Since March 2003, Siemens mobile has additionally been the title sponsor of the Chinese Football League, the "Siemens mobile Football League," and a partner to the country's national team, Team China. Since 1998, Siemens mobile has been a partner to the West McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 racing stall. And for the past five years in a row, Siemens AG has been supporting the Formula 1 umbrella organization FIA, with the Siemens logo appearing on the screen whenever the lap times are shown during television broadcasts of the races. Pictures accompanying this press release are available for downloading from: www.siemens.com/icm-pictures/sponsoring The Siemens Information and Communication Mobile Group (Siemens mobile) offers the complete range of mobile solutions including mobile devices, infrastructure and applications. Devices include mobile phones, wireless modules, mobile organizers and cordless phones as well as products for wireless home networks. The infrastructure portfolio includes GSM, GPRS and 3G mobile network technologies from base stations and switching systems to intelligent networks, e.g. for prepaid services. Mobile Applications cover end-to-end solutions for Messaging, Location Based Services or Mobile Payment. For fiscal 2002 (September 30), Siemens mobile recorded sales of EUR 11 billion and employed approximately 28.600 people worldwide. You can access further information about Siemens mobile on the Internet at http://www.siemens-mobile.com