U.S. startup Berggi ties up with Sina on mobile

* Berggi ties up with major Chinese portal Sina

* Sets up Beijing office

* Sees Chinese subscribers in the millions in a few years

By Sophie Taylor

SHANGHAI, Dec 3 (Reuters) - U.S. startup Berggi Inc, a provider of e-mail services on mobile phones, has clinched a partnership with major Chinese Internet portal Sina Corp (SINA.O) and is setting up an office in Beijing as it targets the world's largest mobile market, Berggi's chief executive said on Monday.

Berggi expects the three-year partnership to help propel its number of Chinese users into the millions in a few years' time, compared with around 30,000 now, CEO Babur Ozden told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The firms aim to develop ad-supported mobile services such as e-mail in China, said Ozden, an industry veteran who founded Internet service SuperOnline, a unit of mobile carrier Turkcell (TCELL.IS).

China is home to more than 500 million mobile subscribers and is the world's second-largest Web market after the United States.

"It is the most important market for my company's future, and it is the most important market for anyone in my space. The Chinese are very progressive on their cellphones," he said.

"Our plan for China also involves creating a global products centre, to invent and innovate some products for the Chinese market, take it from there and spread it worldwide," he added.

With mobile e-mail, consumers can send and receive e-mail on their phones from Internet services such as Yahoo, Microsoft and Google. Berggi also hopes to develop location-based services in China in future.

Berggi is one of a growing number of start-ups seeking to bypass entrenched mobile network operators by offering consumers software directly over the Web.

As of April, it had nearly 2 million registered users for its mobile services and is adding more than 15,000 new users a day.

Besides the United States, the company's users are concentrated in Spain, Latin America, South Asia and Eastern Europe, mainly Russia.

Founded by a group of European entrepreneurs, the start-up received $3 million last year in a funding round led by Adara Venture Partners, which makes early-stage investments in mobile consumer services.

Berggi said earlier this year that it had reached a broad partnership with Spanish telecom and media services company Avanzit SA (AVZ.MC).

(Reporting by Sophie Taylor; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

((sophie.taylor@reuters.com; +86-21-6104-1791; Reuters Messaging: sophie.taylor.reuters.com@reuters.net)) Keywords: BERGGI SINA

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