AFFLE POWERS SMS2.0 MOBILE SEARCH SERVICE FROM AIRTEL IN INDIA

Indian telecom service provider Bharti Airtel and mobile media company Affle have rolled out an SMS based search service in all of India. The service, dubbed Short Message & Search 2.0 or SMS2.0, is available to users for free and to download SMS2.0, the Airtel customer needs to send “SMS2” to 543210. There is no charge for downloading and for subsequent content delivery on this platform. The SMS charges are levied according to one’s existing mobile plan. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Mobile Services at Bharti Airtel said, “In India, the Mobile phone penetration far exceeds the Internet and thus there is a huge demand for new age platforms like SMS2.0, which give users an easier and intuitive experience to access the best of Content and Search features on the mobile for free. We are very excited to offer this revolutionary service which allows our users to Search – Airtel Live, Internet, Local search, Jobs, and Property listings, from their SMS screen.”

Affle CEO Anuj Khanna commented, “India is a very exciting mobile market and in Airtel we have found a great partner to take our services to users. We had tremendous success with the SMS2.0 service, and with the launch of Search, we feel that the value proposition to the user is even more exciting. Our research shows that the Search behavior of users on the mobile phone is very different from the Internet and hence integration of exciting local and other user relevant Search options on the easy to use SMS interface makes this experience very enticing.” -Smarajit Dasgupta