Millicom International Cellular: Millicom and Kalixa create online payments processing partnership for Africa and Latin America

Millicom (NASDAQ:MICC)(STO:MIC), the international telecommunications and media company, and Kalixa announced today the establishment of a joint venture to develop a payments service provider to operate in Africa and Latin America, initially commencing in Colombia and Brazil later this year.

The joint venture will offer payment acceptance services for both businesses and consumers, including payment gateway and point of sale solutions for merchants as well as 1-click payment and eWallet provision for online customers. The partnership will cover the end-to-end payment ecosystem and will offer multi-device and cross-platform services.

The joint venture will benefit from Millicom’s existing reach across Africa and Latin America through its high-profile “Tigo” infrastructures in fourteen countries and its online partnerships in 31 countries. It will also draw on Kalixa’s experience of providing a full range of payment services, including issuing, acquiring and acceptance solutions to over 8,000 merchants across 100 markets.

The initial phase of the joint venture will begin in H2 2014 and will provide an end-to-end service for ecommerce providers. Brazil is the largest market in Latin America with around 60% of its ecommerce by volume and 80% of the continent’s top 500 e-merchants present there. In Colombia, Millicom’s largest market in Latin America, ecommerce is growing significantly at over 60% annually with 50% of internet users enjoying online shopping.

Millicom’s CEO and President, Hans-Holger Albrecht said “Working with Kalixa will enable us to offer a complete digital payments service in markets where ecommerce is growing rapidly and where we already have a strong presence. It is a great combination of our respective expertise.”

Ed Chandler, CEO of Kalixa, commented “As developing markets, Latin America & Africa represent a combined $1.78 [1] trillion opportunity for the payments industry. Our partnership with Millicom is the first step in making payments easier for merchants and consumers in these regions by offering a connected service with the full spectrum of payment services being offered under one roof. As we have already seen in Europe, by removing unnecessary links in the chain we can service customers more efficiently. This allows us to pass the value back to help merchants capitalise on the digital explosion happening in this region”

[1] Sources: Euromonitor - Assessing the payment landscape in Latin America. CapGemini - 8th Annual World Payments Report 2012

About Millicom

Millicom is a leading international telecommunications and media company dedicated to emerging markets in Latin America and Africa. Millicom sets the pace when it comes to providing digital lifestyle services to the world’s emerging markets, giving access to the world, primarily through mobile devices. Operating in fourteen countries, primarily using the Tigo brand, Millicom offers innovative and customer-centric products. Millicom employs more than 10,000 people and provides mobile, cable, broadband, TV content, online and financial services to over 50 million customers. Founded in 1990, Millicom is headquartered in Luxembourg and listed on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm under the symbol MIC. In 2013 Millicom generated revenue of $5.16 billion and EBITDA of $1.9 billion.

About Kalixa

With its single payments platform, the Kalixa payments group provides merchants of all sizes with omni-channel payments from one supplier. It delivers value to customers by reducing costs, eliminating complexity, boosting operational efficiencies, creating new revenue streams and delivering a seamless, intelligent and frictionless payments experience across multiple channels.

Kalixa’s four core products are Kalixa Pay, a prepaid e-wallet with 200,000 users across Europe, Kalixa Pro, an mPOS for small businesses and sole traders, Kalixa Accept, which allows merchants to accept more than 200 payment methods and the PXP Payment Gateway with customers including Urban Outfitters, Intercontinental Hotel Group, bwin.party and MasterCard.

Kalixa payments group has an addressable market of more than 100 countries worldwide. It has over 200 employees internationally and offices in London, Gibraltar, Cologne, Vienna and New York.

For more information visit: www.kalixa.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

Contacts:

For more please visit: www.millicom.com or contact:
At Millicom:
Press Enquiries:
Julian Eccles, VP, Corporate Communications
+44 7720 409374
press@millicom.com
or
Investor Enquiries:
Nicolas Didio, Director of Investor Relations
+44 203 249 2220
investors@millicom.com
or
On behalf of Kalixa:
Daniel Lowther
CC Group on 0207 535 7226
or daniel.lowther@ccgrouppr.com

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