Clickatell Posts Strong Growth in Mobile Messaging Worldwide

Clickatell Posts Strong Growth in Mobile Messaging Worldwide


Redwood City – Clickatell, provider of global mobile messaging solutions, continues to see sustained rapid adoption of its popular mobile messaging applications and services to enterprises worldwide. With ever-increasing cell phone use, mobile device ubiquity and cost effectiveness of text messaging services, enterprises worldwide are increasingly implementing mobile messaging strategies for essential communications as a key differentiator to serving their customers.

In 2007 large enterprise organizations such as BBC, Continental Airlines, CNN, the European Commission, Metropolitan Life, and Nedbank chose Clickatell to provide mobile messaging applications. These new enterprise customers represent substantial growth to Clickatell’s existing client base that already includes Avaya, Barclays Bank, Oracle, BP, First National Bank, Shell, Standard Bank, and others.

“Guaranteed, real-time delivery is critical for transaction-based messages,” commented Len Pienaar, CEO of First National Bank’s Mobile and Transact Solutions. “You can't have messages evaporate, even if it is one in a thousand. The Clickatell gateway and its real-time reporting mean I can be sure our customers will receive their text alerts every time. Clickatell was the obvious choice for FNB because of their global reach, tremendous enterprise experience and high quality of service.”

Clickatell also reports significant growth in the Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) market segment, having added thousands of new customers via www.clickatell.com, the self-provisioned, software-as-a-service (SaaS) portal specifically designed with SME’s in mind. In total, Clickatell has more than 8,000 implemented SME customers – a direct result of the successful Clickatell SMS Gateway and other solutions, which make it fast and easy for any organization to set up and implement mobile messaging solutions to reach their customers using cell phones.

The Portio Research report, “Mobile Messaging Futures 2007 – 2012” states, “By 2012 global SMS revenues are expected to reach $67 billion USD, driven by 3.7 trillion messages.” The report continues, “If there was one message this report should get across it is this: SMS continues to be a phenomenal success as the cheapest, quickest and easiest to use form of peer-to-peer mobile communication. Markets have continued to grow and greatly exceeded the predictions of similar research carried out in 2005. SMS traffic has not flattened out in mature markets but continued to boom whilst the US market has grown much faster than expected.”

Pieter de Villiers, CEO of Clickatell confirms these astounding numbers, “SMS messaging is expanding exponentially with over 1 billion cell phones shipped worldwide each year and growing; enterprises everywhere can reach more people via mobile devices than ever before and can text with more immediate interaction than an email,” he said. “Businesses and governments need to provide their customers and citizens with critical communications when they need it - anywhere, anytime - and text messaging is clearly the easiest, most convenient and most efficient delivery available today.”

In 2007, Clickatell enhanced its enterprise operational initiatives and looks forward to continuing to help its customers exceed their mobile strategy goals:

• Clickatell continues to extend its Quality of Service (QOS) and the reliability of its IT infrastructure. Clickatell further upgraded its enterprise-grade facilities to include hosted services to meet the needs of enterprises seeking compliance to SAS 70 and other data security, safety and integrity best practices.

• Clickatell continually expands network reach and now supports more networks and carriers than any other messaging provider in the world. In 2007, Clickatell provided roughly 85 additional networks, continuing to expand its global service availability.

• Clickatell secured funding from Sequoia Capital and established additional presence in the US. Also in 2007, Clickatell hired Chuck Drake as Executive Vice President of Global Marketing, and Bill Wolfe as Executive Vice President of Research & Development.

Clickatell works with high profile customers across the globe:

• First National Bank’s inContact mobile service notifies customers immediately of account transactions by sending an SMS message to their mobile phone. Real-time, secure, and reliable information on these transactions enables FNB customers to keep up-to-the-minute with all banking activity taking place in their accounts, and to monitor and detect fraudulent activity. The Clickatell solution enables FNB to expand their popular inContact and related services across multiple countries.
• International broadcast news network CNN depends on Clickatell to power its “Breaking News Alert” SMS service to mobile phone users around the world. With this service, customers receive headline alerts via text messages to their mobile phone as major international news stories break. Clickatell's market-leading solution ensures that CNN customers can receive breaking news as it happens wherever they are in the world.

• Metropolitan Life created an innovative business unit called Cover2go that uses mobile phone technology from Clickatell to extend insurance to those who had little previous access. Cover2go ensures that anyone can send an SMS message to Metropolitan Life and receive instant life insurance for six days in the case of accidental death. Using Clickatell, Metropolitan Life has revolutionized the insurance industry by simplifying and streamlining the purchase process.