Partner news: Loquendo wins Emerging Company of the Year Award

Date: 25 July 2008

Loquendo, a subsidiary of ERTICO Partner, Telecom Italia SpA, has won the “2008 Frost & Sullivan European Telematics and Infotainment Emerging Company of the Year” for its excellence in "new market penetration, strategy innovation, technological innovation and leadership, revenue and market share growth". Paolo Coppo, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development at Loquendo, was presented with the award at the 2008 Excellence in Automotive & Transportation Awards Banquet, on 3rd July at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, Germany.

The Frost & Sullivan Award for Emerging Company of the Year is presented each year to a company that is perceived to have exhibited outstanding management, superior market growth, exceptional customer service and the ability to combine technology and successful strategic initiatives. The Frost & Sullivan award recognises that Loquendo has distinguished itself by gaining a market leading position in its sector.  Loquendo has successfully transitioned its products from the telephony sector into other new markets, by scaling down its speech synthesis and speech recognition engines to fit into the embedded space, thus positioning itself as leader in the car navigation and portable navigation device market in Europe.

"With over 30 years of experience in speech and core expertise in this sector, Loquendo has managed to introduce many innovative ASR and TTS solutions, which have enabled the company to gain a market leading position amongst ASR and TTS suppliers in the PND market. The key to Loquendo's success in the European market has been its ability to scale down the speech engines used for telephony applications in the embedded space and also add innovations like phonetic mapping and emotional synthetic speech. This has enabled it to grow into both the PND and car navigation markets," explains Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst N. Praveen Chandrasekar, Industry Manager, Telematics and Infotainment, Automotive & Transportation, EU.

"We are very pleased to receive this award," said Davide Franco, Loquendo CEO. "It is a clear signal that Loquendo's strategy to bring its technologies to new markets has been a great success, and a confirmation that the excellence and innovation of our products has been recognised worldwide."

For more information please contact Paolo Coppo, Loquendo VP Marketing & Business Development, Tel. +39 011 291 3111, or paolo.coppo@loquendo.com, or visit www.loquendo.com

For more information about Loquendo, and to hear demos of all Loquendo voices, go to www.loquendo.com.