Airtel partners with m-commerce firm Celltick
View(s):International mobile commerce firm Celltick has entered into a partnership with the India-headquartered Bharthi Airtel network, spanning 20 countries across Asia and Africa, including Sri Lanka, according to a statement.
The statement also added that “Celltick’s Start interface will provide 1.7 million active Airtel subscribers in Sri Lanka with fast access to their favourite and most frequently used applications and functions, as soon as they wake their phone. Start is a next-generation intelligent Android interface that provides interactive functionality on the start screen of the device, and allows subscribers to easily personalise their device to make it much more enjoyable. Start allows users to access what matters to them most from the start screen, which gives them the opportunity to launch up to 24 apps, creating an easier to navigate interface, while the back end recommendation engine learns and adapts the start screen according to users’ behaviour”.
Further, it was also noted that “Airtel subscribers will benefit from access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as the ability to launch text, email and even the camera function without unlocking the phone. The growing Start ecosystem includes hundreds of themes and plug-ins that are available for download on Google Play. In 2013, Celltick powered billions of mobile-initiated commerce transactions for virtual and physical goods serving more than 140 million active consumers across 25 countries”.
Quoted in the statement, Suren Goonewardene, Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director of Bharti Airtel Lanka, commented that his company has been “dedicated to bringing mobile telephony along with the latest value added services (VAS) to the masses since the day of our inception. We feel strongly that this partnership will help contribute in keeping up to that promise”. (JH)