Hantro, the market leader in mobile video technology, unveils its plans for 3GSM World Congress

The future of mobile is video Oulu, February 12th, 2004- Hantro, the leading mobile multimedia solution expert, announced today the details of its activities at 3GSM World Congress 2004 in Cannes, France from 23-26 February. The company will have a presence at the show with a stand (Stand D6, Hall 2) emphasising that the future of mobile is video.

At 3GSM Hantro will be launching an H.264 decoder and a new Multimedia Engine product which provides a near OS independent solution to delivering mobile video applications. The VGA-Lite encoder, an addition to their MPEG-4/H.263 video codec family, which delivers optimum performance versus gate count will also be launched.

Visitors to the Hantro stand will be able to see the benefits of a hardware video coding implementation with Hantro’s 4350 MPEG-4/H.263 codec integrated in Motorola’s i.MX21 applications processor as well as the 4300 software MPEG-4/H.263 codec and H.264 decoder MMX enhanced for Intel’s XScale® Technology. In addition, Hantro will be demonstrating a variety of mobile handsets with their camcorder application, implemented using the new Hantro Multimedia Engine product.

Analysts, IDC, predict that sales of camera phones will grow 64% in 2004 to almost 100 million units. According to UK research firm, Canalys, shipments of mobile handsets with an integrated digital camera grew to 4.9 million in Europe, Middle East and Africa in the third quarter of 2003 alone and will account for around half of all mobile phone shipments in EMEA in 2006.

Using video while on the move is becoming easier and soon it will be a standard requirement on mobile devices. In 2003 Hantro achieved significant deals in Europe, USA, Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Korea and South America which include many of the leading global silicon and handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, Sanyo, Alcatel, Quanta and Mtekvision. Hantro has also signed contracts with major network operators worldwide including Vodafone TIM and T-Mobile.

Hantro has played a significant role in the research and development of wireless/mobile video solutions and was first to launch this capability on Nokia handsets. The company was formed in Finland in 1992 and is focussed on mobile video technology making it the leading provider of multimedia solutions for mobile terminals. Hantro’s early identification of the opportunity for video enabling mobile devices means that Hantro has a highly-developed solution. With Hantro technology you can capture, play, send and stream, on multiple operating systems, devices, platforms and in multiple formats.

Hantro founder, president and chief executive officer, Eero Kaikkonen, will attend the show alongside key members of his management team. Commenting on Hantro’s achievements, he said, “Entering 2004 as the market leader, we believe our fundamental function is to create products, technology and services that will bring added value to our customers and partners. We have strategically positioned ourselves to manage the mobile multimedia complexity resulting from rapid developments in volume of mobile content, media formats and increasing convergence of computing and mobile devices. Hantro multimedia framework offers a solution capable of not only playing back content in multiple formats, but also allowing the user to create their own content using the built in video camera of the handset.”

Hantro is a privately-held company based in Oulu, Finland and was the first company to deliver a camcorder application for the Nokia 7650 handset. Its mobile phone video camera application (camcorder) is in use in more than 10 countries in Europe, USA and JAPAC.

For more information, please contact:
President and CEO Eero Kaikkonen, Hantro Products Tel: +358 8 8156 300
Email: news@hantro.com

About Hantro
Hantro provides its customers with video solutions for handheld devices. Hantro has both hardware and software based MPEG-4 and H.263 standards based video codecs that have been delivered to customers and are proven solutions. Hantro’s product portfolio also includes video applications for video capturing, playback, messaging, streaming, and telephony. The company’s products play a key role in the development of battery-operated video-capable end products like cellular phones, still cameras, PDAs, camcorders, PC cameras, and web pads. Hantro’s investors are funds managed by CapMan, Startupfactory, Menire and Nexit Ventures.