Press Room
RP-made text applications a hit in Latin America
Originally posted in Manila Bulletin Online | November 8, 2008
Text messaging applications created by Manila-based Chikka are proving their universal utility among Latin Americans.
In Ecuador, a local version of "TxtBack," an application that allows mobile users lacking prepaid load to reply to SMS for free, is registering millions of transactions this year where the sender basically shoulders the text message recipient’s reply.
The reverse application "TxtCollect" this time allowing subscribers without prepaid load to send the text messages was released in the same market, with even more encouraging results according to Gio Bacareza, Chikka Director for the Americas.
Subsequently the two products were introduced in Peru and experienced the same exponential uptake. Peru is one of the fastest growing mobile markets in South America. The use of regular SMS in the country jumped 250% in 2007 versus the previous year.
"The applications we develop for the Philippine market have always been imbued with a high and universal utility. We have always believed in their ‘exportability’ and potential for adoption by other markets and cultures," said Bacareza.
Local mobile network operators market TxtBack and TxtCollect under different brands for their unique mobile subscriber markets, though Chikka further attributes their sustained growth to patented technologies that redound to the services’ ease-of-use.
"Message sending is free of keywords and literally, one need only "text back" to the messages they receive. We never want to change what is already second nature to texters around the world," added Bacareza.
Chikka is better known for launching Chikka Text Messenger, a breakthrough instant messenger that connects seamlessly to mobile phones via SMS. The Company has since diversified into content, commerce and corporate solutions, bringing its applications to over ten countries including the US, UK, Spain, Italy, India, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
