Bharti Airtel (‘Airtel’), a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa, has successfully deployed its mass-market mobile messaging service, based on Synchronica''s Mobile Gateway infrastructure software, in 16 countries in Africa territories. The service, marketed as ‘airtel connect’, combines push email, synchronization, instant messaging and social networking in a single platform and is offered at an affordable, flat-rate, monthly charge.

The group-wide launch is the culmination of a group-wide framework agreement between Airtel Africa and Synchronica.

Airtel Ghana will be the first operator to launch ‘airtel connect’ which will offer a consumer-focused mobile messaging service which combines push email, synchronization, instant messaging and social networking in a single platform on a fixed monthly rental of GHC3 (US$1.99) for unlimited use, and will be available to any Airtel mobile customer, regardless of the type of mobile device they own.

 “Synchronica has proven itself to be the ideal mobile messaging partner for us,” said Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Africa. “Since we chose to work with Synchronica, they have met all of our development, integration and deployment milestones. With ‘airtel connect’ we can offer all of our customers, regardless of which mobile device they use, a user-friendly way of connecting to their favourite email, IM and social networking services.”

"Airtel shares our view that forward-thinking operators need to introduce addictive data services that can be enjoyed by the mass market, not just those who own a high-end Smartphone. Our solution will help Airtel not only to increase ARPU but also to combat churn”, said  Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica.

Synchronica’s Mobile Gateway, on which ‘airtel connect’ is based, provides 100% device compatibility by using the built-in messaging clients found in a wide range of Smart Phones and Feature Phones, in addition to the MMS and SMS technologies for basic handsets.

Already licensed by more than 80 mobile operators worldwide, Synchronica’s messaging platform is simple and cost-effective to deploy in the operator data center, or hosted by Synchronica, and allows operators to offer a comprehensive next-generation messaging service which works on any handset in use today. The launch of airtel connect follows Airtel’s recent success at the Ghana Telecoms Awards where the company won awards in the best customer care company, the best marketing campaign, and CEO of the year categories.