Press Room
Chikka Lands on China 's Shores
July 24, 2003
Philippine wireless application developer Chikka expects to further broaden its offshore market after overcoming the technology hurdle and transplanting its products to run on CDMA (code division multiple access) network technology.
The firm is currently providing its anonymous chat application in the Chinese east coast province of Shandong through a partnership agreement with major telecommunications operator China Unicom. Chikka signed with Unicom last April.
Chikka director for corporate communications Junie Agcaoili said in a telephone interview on Monday that the firm considers its gaining a foothold in a China "significant." "It means we are no longer bound by technology platforms, that we can spread our technology regardless of geographical boundaries," he stressed.
Mr. Agcaoili is referring to the technological divide that currently separates mobile phone markets across the globe.
Markets such as Europe , Asia , and some parts of China use cellular phone services delivered through the GSM (global standard for mobile communications) network technology. GSM enables cellular voice and data communications by compressing such information and sending it down a channel with two other streams of data.
Meanwhile, major US telecom companies have deployed cellular services on CDMA. CDMA uses a more complex process of converting analog input to digital format, then sending them as signals according to a defined pattern. The signal will be unscrambled only by the receiver whose frequency response is programmed with the same code.
While they can both use the 800 and 1900 megahertz spread spectrum, CDMA normally operates on 1.23 megahertz worldwide.
Most application developers traditionally create services and games only for one or the other standard, but not both because of the icongruent technological requirements.
OPENING THE BORDERS
However, Mr. Agcaoili noted that Chikka's deal with China Unicom will hopefully lead to more cross-technology business in other geographies for the firm.
He explained that the firm took only two months to tweak its mobile phone based anonymous chat application for the CDMA platform. China Unicom also contributed in adopting the application to the Chinese language, he added.
"Our investment was that we devoted important manpower to the project," he said.
Mr. Agcaoili added that Chikka is also in talks with China Mobile, which operates a GSM network in the same province as China Unicom.
He said that the two operators serve around 12 million subscribers.
Part of the company's immediate plans is to partner with cellular operators in four more Chinese provinces or political regions: specifically Beijing , Fujian , Guangdong , and Shanghai , Mr. Agcaoili added.
He further observed that being a Philippine-based wireless developer proved to be a benefit because the company had the chance to test and gauge the viability of the application before bringing it to other markets.
"Being a Philippine company in the mobile space now carries with it some weight around the globe because that means you have a track record. We are one of the most sophisticated cellular markets in the world currently, and that means something in other countries now," he stressed.
Most multinational technology firms currently consider China a major market because of its sheer size. In addition, it has been observed that the changing economic system is spawning a potentially large middle class in the one-billion strong socialist country. Analysts estimate that the Chinese middle class currently numbers 250 million, which is roughly as large as the entire US population.—Eleanore C. Sanchez
Source: I.T. Matters
