App available for Windows® phone consumers to choose AP Mobile for customized news

NEW YORK – Empowering consumers to choose the news they want from its unrivalled mobile news network of more than 1,100 local news providers, The Associated Press announced the availability of a mobile news app optimized for the Windows Marketplace for Mobile. As of today, AP Mobile is the top news app - the No. 4 most popular app in Marketplace.

With more than 1.5 million registered mobile news fans currently using AP Mobile, the move underscores AP’s continued efforts to extend the reach of AP Mobile and find new revenue streams for its members through the introduction of newly developed AP news apps and widgets designed for the latest wireless platforms and smartphone devices.

“Windows Marketplace for Mobile gives millions of Windows phone customers access to valuable games, tools and information such as AP’s global network of fast and trusted news in an easy to use mobile application,” said Jason Lim, director of ISV and developer experience at Microsoft. “The AP news app makes it easy for our customers to get the latest news for their work and play - keeping up with the stock market, staying on top of local news and weather, catching up-to-minute sports coverage, or checking out restaurant and entertainment reviews when making plans to go out.”

“AP is paving the way for the innovation of news applications for mobile phones – a move to support our goal of making AP the ‘news’ button of choice on these devices,” said Jeff Litvack, AP’s general manager of mobile and emerging products. “It is important for us to master mobile by experimenting with advertising and content offerings across emerging platforms, especially as we lead the charge for participating AP member news organizations that provide local content to our network.”

Using the Windows Mobile platform, AP Mobile worked with Microsoft Corp. to deliver a robust selection of AP and local news headlines across over 50 channels, including Top News, Business, Politics, World, College Sports, Olympics, Entertainment Reviews, Celebrity, Travel, Lifestyle and Wacky.

Windows phone users have weighed in with early reviews on the Windows Marketplace comments page for the AP Mobile news app: “Social Network Integration is awesome,” “great content and well laid-out,” “finger-friendly,” and “this app is the best news app for windows mobile and it’s free [sic].”

Industry research firm eMarketer estimates that 49.4% of mobile phone users will be accessing the Internet from mobile devices at least monthly through either traditional browsers or installed applications by 2013.