txtNation in China

txtNation today announced they are in the final stages of launching China premium SMS connectivity after 2 years of research, on the ground negotiations and stringent application procedures. With txtNation’s China aggregator status they strengthen their place as the world leader in premium SMS connections.

This comes amidst the news as reported some time ago by the Xinhua News Agency that Ding Lei, the 30-year-old boss of one of China's most well-known Internet portals, NetEase.com, topped the latest annual list of the richest 100 Chinese. Fang Xingdong, a senior Internet analyst in China said short message services and on-line gaming had built Ding's success seeing his 7.5 billion yuan of personal assets making Ding China's richest person. The owner of China's most popular on-line game developer Shanda Networking Development, Chen Tianqiao, 30, is also on the list of China's top 10 richest men. The mobile phone is the true driving force for the resurgence of China's Internet companies, because Chinese mobile phone users are forming the habit of sending messages, according to the American Wall Street Journal.

China has 416.64 million subscribers (31.7% penetration) and two main networks. txtNation’s mBILL connectivity connects with China Mobile and China Unicom to empower their clients with connectivity to over 425 million mobile phone users in China, the fastest growing economy in the world and home to the so-called “Second Industrial Revolution”. With a massive mobile userbase and huge potential for growth, it is equally home to a massive digital revolution.

"2008 has so far been a great year txtNation" Rowsell said. "It has been, in many ways, a year in which we have realized the fruits of many years of labour."

Jon Rowsell, txtNation Director, who co-founded txtNation in 2002, continued "Penetrating China is a big milestone," he said. "Being able to easily offer this previously inaccessible territory will have a huge impact in the industry as we have a large reseller market, you will see many players in the industry offering connectivity fed from txtNation’s new presence in this market.”

With a total population of 1.3 billion, China Mobile is the biggest operator with 274 million subscribers. China Unicom, the second operator in China has 138 million subscribers. In 2007, China’s mobile advertising market grew 97% over the previous year. Currently, SMS advertising is the type of mobile advertising most widely used and represented an estimated 40%–50% of China’s mobile advertising revenue in 2007. Researchandmarkets.com reports WAP advertising, especially sales-oriented advertising, will grow rapidly in the same period.

Interactive marketing is also gaining interest from brand advertisers, providing the next area of growth.

However, SMS is widely considered spam in China. In response to this txtNation avidly adopt strict guidelines for how their Clients can operate, ensuring compliance with regulators, operators and the Mobile Marketing Associations guidelines, promoting consumer confidence.

Adam Williams, Client and Network Relations Coordinator at txtNation states “We feel the timing could not have been better, especially with the commencement of the Beijing Olympics just weeks away now. Continued expansion of our operations into territories such as China, is another clear indication of txtNation’s commitment to bring truly worldwide, mobile solutions into the global market place”.

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics set to pull approximately 3,000,000 visitors into the country and carrying an additional $3 Billion in revenue, it is anticipated that innovative information services, such as SMS alerts will be the new way to keep up with progress news from within the Olympic village. Williams, who has been pushing txtNation’s growth into un-chartered territories closed: “China’s addition to our global billing network is just the start of our new drive towards monetising mobile services across the world. 2008 is set to be a monumental year here, at txtNation”.

Consumer acceptance of mobile advertising is lower than with other advertising methods; however, ads that are related to topics of interest to consumers are likely to be very successful. Spam and traffic costs are the primary barriers for consumer acceptance of mobile advertising.

Most mobile Internet users in China are young and tech-savvy, with low- to mid-level personal income but high purchasing power. As such, researchandmarkets.com think that fashionable, interesting, leading-edge products or advertising campaigns may appeal to them more.