Istanbul, Turkey – Turkcell (NYSE: TKC, ISE: TCELL) working with NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) have selected the PN544 Near Field Communication (NFC) radio chip for Turkcell’s new T20 smartphone. The T20 handset, manufactured by Huawei, is one of the world’s first commercially available low-cost Android NFC-enabled smartphones.
This NFC-enabled mobile phone will, said Turkcell, allow consumers to perform a variety of secure, contactless transactions including mobile payments, data sharing, public transport, event ticketing and access control, while providing a secure, flexible and interoperable canvass on which to create the next experience in mobile-on-the-go.
The Turkcell T20 is already pre-loaded with Turkcell Cep-T Cüzdan; a mobile wallet service developed by Turkcell Technology on Gingerbread 2.3.3 OS. Using the NFC-enabled phone, Turkcell’s subscribers can transform their physical wallet into a mobile one and access an easy to use and secure mobile transaction environment.
Turkcell’s Chief New Technology Business Officer, Cenk Bayrakdar commented that, “NFC technology is instrumental in helping us to achieve our ambition of increasing the penetration of mobile contactless innovations in the Turkish market. Working with NXP, we were able to build a feature-rich, interactive and flexible mobile wallet solution through the open source Android platform. This is our first commercial smartphone developed on Gingerbread 2.3.3 OS and we are extremely pleased to be first to market with this innovation in Turkey.”
