Source: www.tmcnet.com
By Michael Dinan, TMCnet Editor
Seeking to bring social networking features to mobile phones in nations where the devices are expected to keep selling well, a Westborough, Massachusetts-based company today is hailing its flagship application as a way to connect end-users around the world.
Officials at OnePIN say they want “CallerXchange” to gain traction in emerging markets that may lack the infrastructure for the kind of broadband proliferation that has so many PC users logging onto sites such as Facebook in places like the United States – focusing instead on nations such as Brazil and African nations where mobile devices are a primary means of communication.
Specifically, CallerXchange is a mobile contact exchange service that allows subscribers to transform their phonebooks into social address books that become a hub for calls, IMs, e-mails, text messages, and social networking.
According to Chris DeGrace, OnePIN’s vice president of products and alliances, the value of social connectivity is universal across user segments and geographic boundaries – whether for a business user in Moscow or a student in Brazil.
“By enabling users to converge their social networking with their personal information management, CallerXchange is increasing social connectivity around the world,” DeGrace said. “The performance of CallerXchange in global markets validates the importance of social address books,” said. “Mobile operators can now help subscribers build and maintain lifelong connections on their mobile, creating a powerful subscriber retention tool.”
Here’s how the application works and looks.
First, CallerXchange prompts users to enter their contact information:
Then, at the end of the call, one user is prompted to send his contact information to the other:
At the other end, the user is prompted to enter that person as a contact, and his or her e-mail, phone and other contact information are added to the user’s phone book:
Once those details are in there, the user is prompted to send details back to the other person:
The original user is then adds him or her as a contact, and the new contact information is incorporated into his notebook:
OnePIN says it recently expanded its global sales force, with new offices in Brazil, France and Turkey.
It’s an expansion strategy that’s backed by some recent research.
As TMCnet has reported, one new study says that through 2013, the number of mobile network subscribers worldwide will continue to grow at a rate of 8 percent annually.
Emerging markets will play a key role by providing 90 percent of that growth, according to the report. On a global level, mobile subscriptions will grow from 4.0 billion this year to 5.85 billion in 2013.
“While the United States and Europe are hit by economical recession, the Asia-Pacific region has emerged as the biggest market for mobile services by subscriber count,” TMCnet Contributing Editor Raju Shanbhag writes. “Nations such as India and Pakistan still an untapped market in rural areas, and Africa and the Middle East are not far behind, as they’re poised to overtake other regions to become the second-largest mobile market by subscriber count by 2013, states Pyramid Research.”
According to OnePIN, the new offices will help OnePIN better serve leading mobile network operators adopting CallerXchange in the mobile markets of Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Middle East and Northern Africa and Latin America.