Chikka, Wolfpac merge

MANILA, Philippines - Mobile app trailblazers and former rivals Chikka and Wolfpac have merged.

Chikka, whose flagship Chikka Text Messenger is installed in millions of computers and mobile devices around the world, will be the surviving entity.

“The resulting powerhouse now serves as an incubator for new technologies and innovation, producing telco-grade platforms and systems, and real value-added services for the new digital consumer, including corporate partners,” said Chito Bustamante, Chikka chief executive officer.

Until recently, the companies separately produced applications, platforms and services, including apps — those popular communications utilities, productivity and marketing tools, references, media helpers, timesavers, and games downloaded by way of various smartphones and mobile devices.

The merger will form one of the largest Web and mobile applications developers in the Philippines to cater to mobile Internet communities demanding apps of high utility and high entertainment value — qualities ingrained in the two companies’ respective DNAs.

Wolfpac, founded in 1999, first cracked the Philippine mobile content industry wide open in 2001 with successive releases of games, such as the Tamagochi-inspired PetPals and the wildly popular Text2Millions, which started Filipinos thumb-thumping for amusement.

Chikka, also with beginnings in 1999, launched Chikka Text Messenger, probably the world’s first commercially successful integration of Web and mobile utilities.  

Both companies had to develop, from scratch, the platforms on which their groundbreaking applications were to run.  

They made it possible even in the early 2000s, that the ordinary Filipino’s cellular phone also be an entertainment device, an instant messenger, an e-mail client, a wallet and more. 

Smart Communications acquired Wolfpac in 2004, and Chikka in 2009.

“This unified Chikka and Wolfpac organization now has the highest concentration of crack as well as veteran talent in development and content creation in the Philippine mobile industry,” Bustamante said.

“You can imagine what we can do today with wider access to data among consumers, with such technologies as smart phones, the cloud, and with various developer networks,” Bustamante added.