MACROKIOSK ties up with US mobile service provider

PETALING JAYA: Macrokiosk Bhd is optimistic of a 10% to 20% growth in revenue within the next six months through its partnership with mTN Global Inc to offer customers direct access to mobile markets in Central America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and India.

The mobile messaging technology enabler, which currently services 900 million mobile subscribers in Malaysia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, now targets the additional two billion mobile consumers in the new markets by leveraging on the partnership with mTN Global, a US-based mobile services provider.

Speaking at a media briefing here yesterday, its chief executive officer Kenny Goh said, "We're excited about this Macrokiosk-mTN Global tie-up as we are now providing a gateway to the world, literally."

He also said content providers of its new markets could now access Asia via Macrokiosk and the partnership with mTN Global was in line with the company's strategy to complement its connections to 364 mobile operators in 115 countries and enable Macrokiosk to extend its market offerings in all the continents.

On the outlook of the new markets, Macrokiosk chief operating officer Henry Goh told The Edge Financial Daily that North America represented the biggest market and although users had been slow adopters of mobile content, the market had caught up quickly since last year.

Additionally, he said the Middle East market was "rich but lacked technology" although it too was catching up along with the sizeable Africa market which was also growing.

Also present at the briefing was mTN Global chief executive officer and co-founder Paul McGuire who said, "We provide the market visibility, trading framework and underlying mobile transaction technology that connect an aggregator's platform to other buyers and suppliers."

He said demand was growing for premium short message service (SMS) and reverse charge SMS content, where demand was not only limited to content providers but also businesses such as financial institutions which increasingly provided consumers with banking information.