Clickatell, the Cape Town-based mobile messaging provider has merged with a similar US operation called MultiMode and now plans to move its corporate headquarters to that country.
A statement released yesterday afternoon, does not disclose the value of the deal, but says the new company, Clickatell Inc, is ready to become a global force in a market that is set for significant growth, particularly in North America.
This is the first deal announced since Clickatell CEO and founder Pieter de Villiers moved to San Mateo in the US state of California at the beginning of the year.
Anton Lan, Clickatell head for Middle East and Africa, says the deal not only increases his company`s global footprint and opens a market for its SMS products, but allows it to back-import technology that may be of use to the local market.
"The deal also gives us the technology to differentiate ourselves in the local market. Our South African clients have been very excited about the deal," he says.
Clickatell counts among its SA customers Old Mutual, British Petroleum, Standard Bank and First National Bank.
Lan says in terms of the new Clickatell structure, its South African operations will become its service centre, largely because most of the intellectual property resides in this country.
He says there will also be some cross-pollination in terms of personal movement such as US staffers coming to Cape Town to help with the installation of their technology, but there are no plans for local employees to start moving to either the US or Europe - where another regional head office has been established.
Lan says talk about a possible Clickatell US listing is conjecture, but says there is a strong possibility of the company expanding its presence in other geographic regions such as Asia / Pacific.
"Watch this space," he says.
According to the statement, the merger represents a major extension to Clickatell`s product family and offers enterprise customers and employees pplication-initiated mobile message delivery with significant cost efficiencies. A major aim of the merger is to complement Clickatell`s original SMS offerings with MultiMode`s multimodal messaging and real-time alerting communications.
Multimodal messaging allows users to choose on which devices they would like to be reached for time-critical alert messaging.
"This is particularly important in North America where the breadth of communications devices is more prolific, from text pager, fax machine, landline phone and IP-connected devices as well as mobile phones," the Clickatell statement says.
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