Malaysian soccer fans get chance to catch up with their favourite team

Aston Villa catch-up content now available on mobile devices

Malaysian fans of English Premier League team Aston Villa can now catch up on the latest match highlights and news about their club on their mobile phones.

Thanks to a tie-up with swanbay.tv, Malaysian fans whose mobile devices use the Maxis Communications network can view match highlights and behind-the-scenes interviews with Aston Villa staff and players.

Aston Villa Head of Marketing Russell Jones explained, “We continue to work hard to build our fan base in Asia and this partnership with swanbay.tv and Maxis will enable us take Aston Villa TV to a huge new audience - nearly 14 million subscribers. At the same time it will enable existing fans based in Malaysia the opportunity to have the latest news and highlights from Villa Park delivered straight to their mobiles.”

swanbay.tv Chief Executive Steve O’Meara added, “In many countries, such as Malaysia, mobile devices are more popular than traditional computers for viewing video. Often, wireless networks are more accessible than fixed-line broadband. Viewing swanbay.tv doesn’t even use up any of a customer’s mobile data allowance – unlimited streaming is included.

“We’re continually increasing the range of quality material we can offer to consumers in Malaysia through arrangements such as this with Aston Villa.”

Football fans in Malaysia can access the Aston Villa channel through their Maxis mobile phone or tablet at a cost of RM2 per week by browsing to http://maxisepl.plnt.tv. Content includes match highlights, pre-match previews, interviews with the manager, players and fans, comment from experts and other club news.

Maxis Communications is the largest Mobile Operator in Malaysia. It has nearly 14 million subscribers, in a country where mobile is the dominant telephony system (there are only 4m fixed lines in Malaysia, mostly for businesses). It was also the first to launch 4G services in the country and, earlier, the first to launch 3G, HSPA and HSPA+ as well as NFC.

Just over half of Malaysian subscribers have smartphones, mostly Android based. And more than half have 3G capable devices. In a population of around 30m, there are more than 33m mobile phone subscriptions.

For more information:

Swanbay: Richard Dymond, Head of Marketing and PR, on +44 (0)7977 242 573 or

+44 (0)1344 567 123         Richard.dymond@swanbay.tv

Aston Villa: Brian Doogan, Head of Media, at brian.doogan@avfc.co.uk or Russell Jones, Head of Marketing and Communication at russell.jones@avfc.co.uk

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