The Claro Mail service is promoted to existing and potential Claro Dominicana customers. Claro is a full service provider of telecommunication services and the largest in the Dominican Republic with currently more than five million customers.
A key criterion for Claro in the selection of Synchronica’s solution was its support for email to SMS and email to MMS messaging, which is most appropriate for the installed base of low end handsets in the Dominican Republic.
With Synchronica Mobile Gateway, users of entry level handsets send and receive emails as a standard SMS or MMS; their replies are then converted back to email.
Synchronica Mobile Gateway works on virtually every handset in the market today, from basic handsets right through to Smartphones, making it an ideal solution for mobile operators whose installed base comprises users with a diverse range of handsets.
Lucía Guzmán, mobile solutions director at Claro, commented: “Our promotion of a mobile email solution based on Synchronica’s technology allows us to offer a mobile Email service to all of our subscribers, not just those with high end phones. Being able to target our entire customer base with such a powerful yet affordable service, made the decision to license Synchronica’s software an easy one.”
Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, added: “Our discussions with mobile operators such as Claro Dominicana tell us that mobile email for the masses is already proving to be must-have for operators across the globe. People need to communicate, and in emerging markets, mobile email is becoming the most efficient and least expensive way to do this.”
Commenting on the Latin American market, Nick Jotischky, principal analyst, Informa Telecoms & Media, said: “Mobile non-voice services, such as mobile Email, continue to grow and become more important to operator strategies in Latin America. This latest contract win for Synchronica in Latin America with its ‘mobile Email for all’ solution is a case in point. The size of the non-voice market grew by 38% in 2008 to reach $11 billion, of which $4.5 billion comprised the non-SMS data market. Indeed, the number of non-SMS data subscribers (GPRS, CDMA2000 1x and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO) was in excess of 25 million across the region at the end of 2008 accounting for a 18% rise during the year.”