Launched late last year with mobile service operator Airtel, Affle is in close talks with other telecom players to offer similar service, a top company official said.
"The user uptake for SMS 2.0 was unprecedented as the primary focus was to provide quality service to users. They can now send their messages with attractive background colours or emoticons. We look at adding about 10-11 lakh users by the end of the year," Affle South Asia Executive Director Anuj Kumar told PTI.
SMS 2.0 is platform neutral and the company is in talks with both GSM and CDMA technology based telecom providers to offer it, he added.
The key differentiator is that it replaces the default SMS application on the mobile handset and does not provide a challenge to users to search it from applications menu.
As the service is free to users, it helps in easy adoption, he said.
There is a cache of content stored on the phone which is periodically updated through a background action.
Every time the user opens the messaging window, a content of relevance to him or her, is pulled out of the cache, and is shown at the bottom of the screen in an inobtrusive fashion.
To enhance user experience, about 80 per cent of the content is relevant to users, Anuj said adding the remaining 20 per cent is advertisements
The content could include news, cricket updates, jokes, bollywood gossip etc. "We have tied up with Indiatimes, cricinfo, Jagran Publications for different content. Affle is also developing its own interactive content for users," Anuj Kumar said.
When the user sends a SMS, the screen is replaced with the full screen visual of the teaser content. The screen has an options menu for further interactive action.
"The options could include leading to the wap page of the website, triggering a premium SMS, initiating a call or even registering for a call back service," he said.
Affle has recently tied up for Indian Premier League T20 cricket match update and content. In advertisers, financial services companies like ICICI Bank, Aviva and corporates like Godrej, Pfizer, DHL, IBM, Pepsi among others are using this medium.
"The clickthrough rates (the percentage of people who trigger a follow-up action on the advertisement) is about 3-4 per cent which is significantly higher than most other digital media," he said.
Affle operates in five countries
