Abu Dhabi - Group Media Desk:- February 5th 2012:- Etisalat Group has been nominated for four GSMA Global Mobile Awards this year for advanced and world-class services offered across the Middle East, African and Asian markets.

Back in the 2011, Etisalat Group has launched a unique maternal mobile health program which helps to provide critical healthcare to pregnant women in rural areas in Africa. This transformational service was developed in partnership with Qualcomm, D-Tree International and Great Connections Inc. and is named "Mobile Baby". The service "Mobile Baby" has been shortlisted in two categories - "The Best Mobile Health Innovation "and "The Best Service for Women in Emerging Markets". The service has saved countless lives whilst greatly enhancing the quality of living of millions of women across the continent. Hence and based on experience across Africa and the Middle East the company is looking to roll-out the service across all of its Operations throughout 2012.

Etisalat's (m) Commerce service was nominated by GSMA awards as well in the category - "The best Mobile Money Innovation". In 2011, Etisalat introduced and is continuing the commercial roll-out of fully interoperable, open-loop (Mobile) Commerce ecosystem across its Operations. Following recent successes in Tanzania, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Etisalat enables end-users to use mobile phones as a payment instrument truly anywhere, anytime without geographical borders in highly secured environment. The service is offered across all interfaces including SIMToolKit, on-line, IVR and NFC including Africa's first NFC service "Touch and Go", which was developed in partnership with MasterCard and Oberthur Technologies.

Additionally, Etisalat was nominated in the category "The Best Network Product or Solution for Serving Customers" for recent launch of DotMe service in Nigeria.

DotMe is an instant noticeboard and instant publishing service for all Etisalat customers. Etisalat customers publish information (post) by simply texting their news or status message to the SMS short code. Anybody who knows an Etisalat customer's mobile phone number can 'read' their current post, simply by texting a dot (a full stop) to their number.

Commenting on these nominations, Mr. Michael O'Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA said. "Reflecting the intensity of competition and innovation across the mobile ecosystem, we saw a record 600 entries and an exceptionally high quality field of contenders vying for this year's Global Mobile Awards. "It is a significant achievement to have made the shortlist, and our warmest congratulations go to all the nominees announced today. We look forward to the unveiling of the winners at the Mobile World Congress next month."

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