AirMedia granted Wi-Fi concession right on ordinary trains operated by Shanghai Railway Bureau

BEIJING – AirMedia Group Inc. (Nasdaq: AMCN), a leading operator of out-of-home advertising platforms in China targeting mid-to-high-end consumers, announced that Guangzhou Meizheng Advertising Co., Ltd. (“Meizheng”), one of its consolidated entities in which AirMedia has 63.2% of the equity interest, has recently won a bidding and has entered into a concession agreement with Shanghai Railway Culture and Advertising Development Co., Ltd., pursuant to which Meizheng has been granted the exclusive right to install and operate Wi-Fi systems on ordinary trains operated by Shanghai Railway Bureau. As of the time of execution of the Concession Agreement, Shanghai Railway Bureau had 147 groups of ordinary trains.
 

Shanghai Railway Bureau had 275 million passengers on its high-speed trains and 175 million passengers on its ordinary trains in 2014.
 

Before obtaining the aforementioned concession right, AirMedia was granted concession rights to install and operate Wi-Fi systems on the high-speed trains operated by Beijing Railway Bureau, Shanghai Railway Bureau and Guangzhou Railway (Group) Corporation, with which AirMedia established a leading position in Wi-Fi services on high-speed trains in China, in terms of the number of high-speed trains on which it has concession rights to operate on-train Wi-Fi systems. In addition, AirMedia also holds the concession rights to install and operate Wi-Fi systems on ordinary trains operated by Xinjiang Railway Bureau.
 

“In addition to the developments we have made on high-speed trains, we also intend to obtain a leading position in Wi-Fi services on ordinary trains in China. We believe there will be tremendous business opportunities when hundreds of millions of passengers use our Wi-Fi services when they travel. We have been doing technical test of Wi-Fi services on ordinary trains operated by Xinjiang Railway Bureau since late January 2015. With the test results and experience, we expect to install and operate Wi-Fi services on more ordinary trains and high-speed trains in 2015, as well as to start monetizing this unique Wi-Fi gateway and platform,” commented Mr. Herman Guo, chairman and chief executive officer of AirMedia.