Chennai-based firm in tie-up with Blackberry

Tiruchirappalli, Jul 22: Eyeing leadership status in mobile education, Chennai based Education Support Services Company EdServ has tied-up with Blackberry to provide online education content on the smartphones.

EdServ's wide range of Educational content on its flagship education portal www.lampsglow.com will go in as ''HumThum Apps'' into Blackberry Apps Store of Blackberry Smart Phones worldwide, S Giridharan, Chairman and CEO, EdServ, said.

"Through this tie up with Blackberry, we will provide the entire online education content that includes Tuition, Academics, Skill Development, and Test Prep Services on the Blackberry Smart Phone," he told PTI here.

EdServ was targeting a customer base of one crore and revenues of Rs 200 crore through the mobile learning services within the next three years and is eyeing leadership status in mobile education, he said.

EdServ's ''HumThum app'' has a PDF converter that will change the Blackberry smart phone to a mobile scanner or a photocopier. HumThum apps has a Talking Dictionary that will provide pronunciation and meaning of any English word.

On overall growth projections for EdServ, he said the company expects to register a 50 per cent growth in revenues this year and is targeting to end the year with revenues of Rs 180 crore compared to Rs 122 crore it registered last year.

It expects to maintain profitability at 30 per cent of the top line and is targeting a PAT of Rs 55 crore this year.

EdServ expects 100 per cent growth on customer growth on its portal www.lampsglow.com this year, he said. The customer base was also expected to more than double this year from the existing customer base of 1.5 lakh, he said.

Answering a query about investment plan, Giridharan said the company was finalising plans to raise capital towards the current expansion and infrastructure development and mopping of funds could be through Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds and GDR to be rolled out by middle of August this year.

PTI