Habbohotel and Sulake win in SIME'05 Awards
Habbo Hotel and Sulake Win in SIME'05 Awards
- Habbo Hotel Online Community Wins Best Entertainment Content and Sulake Wins Best E-Commerce Company at Scandinavia's Biggest Internet Competition
Helsinki, Finland, November 11th, 2005 - Sulake Corporation, the creator of teen online community Habbo Hotel, was extremely successful in SIME'05, Scandinavian Interactive Media Event, also referred to as the "Grammy awards" of Scandinavia's Internet industry. SIME competition gathered over 600 contestants, which competed in 11 different categories.
Sulake's flagship product, Habbo Hotel, was chosen as the Best Entertainment Content. The prize was awarded to Habbo Hotel as a site leveraging the web to deliver and produce pioneering online content enjoyed by readers, members, clickers and fans alike.
Habbo Hotel has already attracted users to create 37 million Habbo characters to the game and the number of unique monthly users is already over 4.3 million.
"The attraction of Habbo Hotel is in the community. Habbo Hotel is all about making and meeting friends and having fun together online. It's not traditional consumable entertainment; participation is the key," comments Sampo Karjalainen, Chief Creative Officer and a Founder of Sulake.
Sulake itself was awarded as the Best E-Commerce Company. The jury was looking for a company with an excellent customer proposition, a site with great user-experience and a management understanding how to win market-shares online.
"Sulake has developed an incredibly sophisticated and dynamic eCommerce infrastructure particularly suited to our customer demographic and product portfolio. Our global payment network currently spans 24 countries and includes online, offline and telco payment methods. Our mobile payment network alone supports direct Mobile Operator billing in 20 countries", says Ken LeDrew, Sulake's eCommerce Director.
"We are constantly expanding and developing our payment network so that it is scaleable, flexible, usable and profitable. We are very proud to accept these awards and thank SIME for selecting Sulake."
For more information please contact:
Ms. Paula Biveson, Communications Director, Sulake Corporation, tel. +358 50 512 3001, [email protected]
Mr. Kenneth LeDrew, e-Commerce Director, Sulake Corporation, tel. +358 400 334 024, [email protected]
About Sulake: Sulake is an interactive entertainment company. It specializes in developing, publishing and distributing multiplayer online communities and games, like Habbo Hotel. Sulake was established 2000, and it has more than doubled its annual revenues each year since that, and this growth is expected to continue during 2005.
The main shareholders in Sulake include Taivas Group, 3i Group plc, Elisa Group and Benchmark Capital followed by the company's founders Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo KyrölÀ, Sulake's CEO Timo Soininen and other personnel.
Sulake has localized Habbo Hotel communities in 16 countries on four continents: North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. To date, more than 37 million Habbo characters have been created, with over 4.3 million unique users visiting Habbo Hotel each month.
Sulake has headquarters in Finland and offices in 14 countries. Currently Sulake has more than 220 employees worldwide.
