Clickatell, provider of global mobile messaging solutions, enjoyed a banner year as the growth of SMS continued to experience phenomenal growth. With text messaging surpassing voice calls in 2008, ever-increasing cellphone use, mobile device ubiquity, and the cost-effectiveness of SMS, enterprises worldwide are rapidly implementing mobile messaging strategies for essential communications, as a desired, value-added service.
In 2008, dozens of leading companies, including CNN, RSA Data Security, S1/Postilion, Easy Forex, Christie's, Moneybookers, Santam Insurance, mig33, BluePulse, MXit, New Heights Microfinance Bank, and others in the fields of healthcare and education, chose Clickatell to offer critical mobile applications to customers. These new enterprise customers represent substantial growth to Clickatell's existing client base, which already includes Avaya, Oracle, BP, First National Bank, Shell, Standard Bank, Metropolitan Life, National Health Service (NHS), Continental Airlines, and others.
SMS technology, functional on all cellphones, provides banks, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, foreign exchange, microfinancers, social networks, hospitals, publishers, and more with a direct, quick channel for instant customer communications, instant cost savings and an instant revenue channel. Easy to initiate and receive, SMS provides a tool for immediate relief from the economic downturn and also presents opportunities to create new revenue streams. Even in these slowing times, it is believed by many analysts that people won't give up their cellphones or SMS addiction.
“Given the reach and immediacy of SMS in establishing and growing customer interaction and commerce and the simplicity to experiment through robust Web services such as Clickatell, we are bullish about 2009 and believe that SMS will thrive even in this economic climate,” commented Pieter de Villiers, CEO of Clickatell. “SMS is simply the most effective way to reach everyone - not just generation Y. Everyone has a cellphone in their pocket, purse or backpack and they use it to connect, communicate and transact daily. Every business, large and small, should have an SMS strategy; after all, it reaches more people than e-mail.”
Portio's 2008 Mobile Messaging report concluded: “SMS still 'king' as worldwide messaging revenues set to exceed $224 billion by 2013,” and highlights the explosive expansion of the mobile messaging market. The analyst firm stated: “SMS remains 'king' because there is no cheap, easy-to-use alternative that will work with all phones and across all networks; it is loved the world over. Indeed in the US market, where SMS was a comparative slow starter, use per subscriber per month is now almost double the European average.”
Innovating in tandem with this continuing growth of SMS, Clickatell developed applications across many industries to allow enterprises to incorporate mobile SMS easily and seamlessly. Financial services, social networking, retail, transportation, insurance, hospitality, education, and even governments have employed Clickatell to get them up to speed in this burgeoning mobile market. With more than 8 500 customers in over 200 countries, Clickatell has delivered billions of high value messages since its founding in 2000 and is widely regarded as a trusted partner and mobile expert.
In 2008, Clickatell added hundreds of new customers via its self-provisioned SaaS portal, www.clickatell.com, which was designed with mobile developers in mind. Clickatell has one of the largest developer communities - a direct result of the award-winning Clickatell SMS Gateway, mature APIs and other necessary messaging services, which makes it fast and easy for any organisation to deploy messaging solutions to reach customers anytime, anywhere.
Throughout 2008, Clickatell was recognised by leading analyst and publishing organisations for its excellence in providing mobile messaging applications for leading enterprises. The company's products, customers, and services were honoured with a myriad awards, including:
* Mobile Star Gold: Pieter de Villiers, Wireless Industry Visionary
* Mobile Star Gold: Clickatell's Enterprise Gateway for Mobile Alerting
* Mobile Star Gold: Clickatell's Enterprise Gateway for Application Development
* Mobile Star Silver: Clickatell Marketing Development Tool
* Mobile Industry Review: Clickatell Best Value Product
* 160Characters: Clickatell Best Messaging Business Application
* Africom: Best Customer Service (First National Bank & Santam), finalist
* Mobile Search: Best Information Service (National Health Service)
In addition to providing excellence in product development and customer satisfaction, the company enhanced its enterprise operational initiatives and looks forward to continuing to see customers succeed in providing mobile solutions worldwide:
* Clickatell successfully deployed the largest next-generation enterprise mobile messaging platform available for premier financial services organisations. The first deployment in 2008 by one of the largest banks in South Africa delivers hundreds of millions of messages and the bank enjoys a fully integrated, on-premise SMS solution, which offers SMS alerts and notifications to support its services.
* Based on Clickatell's expanded product via its open and extensible messaging platform architecture, many new solutions are available: On Demand Text Banking via S1/Postilion, Mobile One Time Passwords (OTPs) authentication to mobile phones via RSA, SMS provisioning and service management, and mobile marketing campaign management.
* Clickatell launched its 'Messaging Market' beta representing the world's first online marketplace and open forum for mobile application developers. Powered by Clickatell, 'Messaging Market' is designed to open communications between developers, drive traffic to third-party solution vendors, increase customer visibility, and provide an underlying infrastructure.
* In addition to www.clickatell.com, Clickatell expanded its online presence to include regionally focused, dedicated offerings to South Africa, UK, and Australia.
Clickatell continues to work with high profile customers and partners across the globe to offer mobile alerts, notifications, communications, and transactions:
* S1 Enterprise/Postilion announced many new banks providing text services using Clickatell, providing on-demand SMS capabilities for access to account balances, funds transfer, transaction alerts, and person-to-person payments. With two-way SMS communications, people can proactively manage finances and monitor potential fraud.
* The world's most recognised global financial services brand and operator of the largest retail card payments network worldwide depends on Clickatell to power an early warning service via SMS to enhance cardholders' confidence. When cardholders make purchases with their card, they can receive text alerts at the time of payment - providing cardholders with real-time, mobile alerts, allowing them to pay close attention to account activity as transactions occur.
* More than 6.2 million Moneybookers customers can now receive Clickatell-powered text notifications directly to their cellphone when purchases are complete, goods are mailed, or money transfers are wired. Giving customers control and constant “handheld” awareness of account activity through SMS, Moneybookers is a pioneer in the application of payment systems and technologies using channels such as Facebook and eBay.
* Leading social networking providers such as mig33, Bluepulse, MXit and Rummble e are using Clickatell to increase customer acquisition, improve effectiveness of social networks, and increase the overall "stickiness" of mobile communities. Using SMS for mobile social networks greatly improves the ability to stay connected with friends, family and business associates anywhere, anytime.
“Clickatell will continue to deliver world-class SMS solutions as this phenomenal growth trend continues. As today's news concludes - SMS will persist in the person-to-person arena, but also in the enterprise-to-consumer arena as businesses large and small continue to extend reach to receptive customers via the cellphone,” concluded de Villiers.
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Clickatell
Clickatell enables businesses, governments and communities to leverage the ubiquity of mobile messaging to inform, alert, notify, transact, interact and share information. Delivering mobile messaging solutions since 2000, Clickatell is a global leader in mobile communications specializing in SaaS messaging services and Bulk SMS gateway connectivity to small, medium and large enterprises in a variety of vertical markets. Clickatell's multi-modal capability and worldwide coverage gives organizations the power to deliver any message to any device anywhere in the world. Reaching more than 700 networks in more than 200 countries, Clickatell serves 8,300 customers including Visa, Nokia, Oracle, RSA, AVAYA, BBC, Continental Airlines, CNN, First National Bank, Metropolitan Life, Oracle, Shell, and other industry leaders. Clickatell products and services increase customer acquisition, improve loyalty and build trusted brands through direct, personal, easy, and immediate communications. A Sequoia-backed company, Clickatell is headquartered in Redwood City, CA, and has offices in South Africa. For more information, please visit: http://www.clickatell.com/central/campaigns/redir.php?cid=95943
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