With international time zones, flight schedules provided by OAG, up-to-the-minute exchange rates, weather forecasts from The Weather Channel and even a clothing size converter, WorldMate has become as important to many globetrotters as their suitcase and is now the bestselling mobile travel application in the world.

WorldMate is developed by Ericsson Mobility World business partner MobiMate and is used by hundreds of thousands of business professionals worldwide who have come to rely on the mobile-accessed information.

MobiMate Product Marketing Manager Rachel Fefer says WorldMate Professional Edition, is designed specifically for the business/frequent traveler. It utilizes OAG’s up-to-date travel information from more than 800 airlines and The Weather Channel’s global weather forecasts from over 38,000 cities. 

“We work with the top content providers in the market, ensuring quality and accurate information,” she says.

Already a number-one bestseller, WorldMate for Symbian-OS smartphones is updated regularly, introducing even more features specifically for the traveling professional. The 2006 version of WorldMate Professional Edition is already available, which supports Windows Mobile 5.0. MobiMate also recently participated in a Visa promotion together with OAG to address Visa Infinite and Platinum members in Asia and Australia.

Fefer says the new features have already seen a market increase in data traffic, as users download the latest information on when and where they are going. The original WorldMate version generated more than 300kb per month for an average user, with WorldMate Professional Edition considerably outstripping that level.

“Operators who are launching it are excited about the amount of traffic they are going to generate. Major players in the market have shown explicit interest in products that utilize the full range of wireless functions, like those we create,” she says.

Fefer says one of WorldMate’s main strengths is its easy-to-use interface, which is pleasing to the eye. Its success culminated in a Handango Champion Awards for best travel application for Symbian-OS smartphones in 2003, 2004 and 2005. MobiMate also took out the Developer of the Year for Symbian at last year’s awards.

MobiMate offers WorldMate as an as-is package, as a service that the operator can resell to his/her own customer base or in a format that can be branded by operators, to sell to their users.

WorldMate is sold as an annual subscription.  It is as simple as voicemail, a service taken for granted by the millions of mobile phone consumers worldwide. WorldMate is available on Java platforms, as well, and MobiMate has partnerships with many operators for the licensing of the product, such as Orange in the UK.

"We expect to have much more enterprise focus in the future and make the products more corporate oriented. Until now, we have sold our solution to 500 companies, and the interest is increasing," Fefer says.

Ericsson has supplied its Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) team with personalized Sony Ericsson P910 handsets, equipped with the latest applications, including WorldMate Professional Edition.