NEVER MIND targeting mobile phone users in mature markets with email facilities – the developing countries are the place to be because PCs and broadband are scarce. That's what Synchronica has just found out.

In news released to the London Stock Exchange, Synchronica says it has done a deal with a Chinese handset vendor to put its Syncml software client inside the handsets.

In return for this, Synchronica will get a minimum of $1 per handset per year and better still get a 20 per cent share of all the revenues earnt by handset users going through the company's Mobile Gateway. That's a big chunk of change.

The unnamed handset vendor is almost certainly TCL which will act as an application service provider and offer the email service to Chinese mobile network operators. It later plans to expand this service outside China.

Synchronica points out that there are some 580 million handsets in use in China. However, a source told the INQ that the company estimates as many as 80 million of those might sign up for the service.

TCL - which is best known for producing handsets using the Alcatel brand - itself is expecting to ship some 16 million devices in 2008 but Synchronica's client can easily be downloaded to existing smartphones.

Although RIM is currently regarded as the leader in mobile email with its Crackberry, this deal has the potential to see Synchronica shoot right up there and challenge for the top. Especially if it can do similar deals in India and Africa where the local conditions are so similar.

Now where's my broker's number? µ