PC users worldwide connect to RP mobiles

Millions of PC users worldwide can now be virtual "textmates" with mobile phone subscribers in the Philippines.

Chikka Holdings Ltd. announced the official launch of MyGlobe Instant Messenger by Globe Telecom, thus completing the company’s Philippine rollout.

With Globe in the picture, PC users of the Instant Messaging (IM) application ChikkaTxt Messenger now connect to 98 percent of all Philippine mobile subscribers.

"Chikka is now the definitive gateway for millions of PC users around the world to text 12 million Filipino cellphone users," said Chikka COO Junie Agcaoili.

"Texting is now nothing short of a way of life in the Philippines. People, especially those outside the Philippines, soon learn that texting is ‘how the world and the Philippines talk.’ This is what the service is all about," Agcaoili added.

Mobile phone users send the word "IM" to access code 2371 (Globe) to register. This makes them searchable and ready to receive messages from users who are running the PC application from over 100 countries. Mobile users reply to these messages, which zip through the Internet, by simply texting back.

Chikka is actually a mobile version of Instant Messengers popular among PC users, especially in the United States. Chikka is, in fact, the first to bring Instant Messaging completely mobile. Thus, mobile users, like their PC counterparts, are able to detect the availability of "buddies" to receive messages albeit through SMS (Short Messaging Service).

"Also, we’ve seen other PC-to-mobile texting services become available in the past only to find at some point carriers canceling the service given runaway use of PC-to-mobile texting. Chikka prioritized contracts with telco partners. Thus, for the consumer, the more you use Chikka, the more you are assured that the service stays," said Agcaoili.

Where different content providers are racing to roll out SMS applications in the undisputed "Texting Capital of the World," the makers of Chikka are now looking beyond – to export the texting culture.

Asia and Europe, where the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) platform dominates, are high on the company’s international rollout priorities.

According to Agcaoili: "The explosion in texting is not an exclusive Philippine phenomenon as there is an SMS frenzy all over Europe and much closer in Indonesia and Malaysia. However, we do carry with us significant learning, developing products for what is probably the most advanced texting culture in the world, that of Filipinos."