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RRC appointed as Palm Independent Marketing company to Represent Business Interests of Palm in 30 Countries in Central and Eastern Europe


Palm Independent Marketing Company (IMC) status extended to RRC Distribution

RRC-CZ Distribution, a leading CEE and Russian based technology product distributor, today signed an Independent Marketing Company (IMC) agreement with Palm Europe Ltd, a leader in mobile computing. This extends the current distribution agreement between Palm Europe and RRC and enables RRC-CZ and develop the Palm® brand presence and market share there. Countries covered by the agreement include:Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia/Herzegovina,Bulgaria, Croatia,Cyprus,Crete,Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, , Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malta Moldova, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Ukraine

Under the terms of the Palm IMC agreement, RRC-CZ Distribution will take on the full responsibilities related to Palm Europe?s business development efforts in the region that include channel development and education, sales and marketing, brand and product awareness programs as well as distribution. The Palm I.M.C will also provide technical support services to resellers and provide all Warranty repairs and Customer support services as well as certification of Palm?s smartphones in the region.

"Palm has had a long term relationship with RRC-CZ, which is part of RRC Group holdings based in Russia and have seen significant success in developing our Smartphone business in several of the countries in which they have been acting as a Master Distributor for Palm. We are now ready to take that to a new level and have been able to create an Independent Marketing Company hosted by RRC but acting as an independent business unit, initially with 11 employees and headed by Jason Blanchard who has considerable experience in the Telecoms industry" said Tim Mahne Director of Palm IMC Channels EMEA.

The signing of the agreement comes at a time when the Russian and CEE markets are experiencing a rapid growth in smartphone usage. With around 350 million mobile subscribers in the Russia and Central/Eastern Europe there is a significant market opportunity to upgrade these users to messaging devices. In 2007 there were 8 million Smartphones sold in the Territory according to Canalys.