The cell phone is the must-have accessory of our time. These small hand-held devices act as road-trip navigators, online shopping assistants, yellow pages, bank tellers, advertisers and more. Zi Corporation (Nasdaq: ZICA) uses them to operate as a leading provider of mobile search, text input and advertising. For more than 10 years, Zi Corp. has been at the forefront of the Asian mobile marketing through its subsidiaries in China.

Zi Corp. yesterday announced it has entered into several new licensing agreements to boost its position in the Asian mobile space, all of which will give Zi Corp. licensing fees and royalties.

“The mobile market in Asia is one of the fastest growing in the world. It is at the forefront of technological design and development, making it a highly competitive and desirable market in which to be a leader,” Milos Djokovic, president and CEO of Zi Corp. stated in

In a partnership with Zi Corporation, UTStarcom has begun shipping Internet Protocol television “set-top-boxes” in China, featuring eZiText, a predictive text-input solution. The Alameda, Calif. company (NASDAQ: UTSI) signed a licensing agreement with Zi Corporation in November of 2007, and both companies plan to work together on other products and services.

“We have chosen Zi Corporation again because of the quality of its text-entry solutions and superior technical support, especially in Asia,” said BaiJun Zhao, UTStarcom senior vice president. “We are very focused on developing our strategic base of IP solutions and Zi provides us with the text input capabilities we need in Asia.”

eZiText “learns” usage patterns and new vocabularies, and has predictive entry and word completion abilities. It is for use by electronic manufacturers and telecom carriers.

“We are very pleased that UTStarcom continues to use our award-winning products to succeed in the global marketplace,” said Milos Djokovic, Zi Corporation president