Clickatell Wins Mobile Content Awards for Significant Progress in Mobile Sector; US State Department Deployment of Obama SMS Speech Campaign Wins Again

Visiongain announced its Mobile Content Awards (MCA) winners last week during its London event to those companies and individuals making significant progress in the mobile industry. Clickatell founder and CEO Pieter de Villiers is being honored as "Industry Personality of the Year," for his insight and contributions to the mobile industry. And, Clickatell is being recognized for "Best Mobile Messaging Campaign" highlighting its work with the US State Department and its successful mobile campaign sending ‘live’ text messages to global citizens during President Obama’s Cairo and Ghana speeches earlier this year.

This announcement is released on the heels of Tuesday's news from MOBI Awards nominating Clickatell in the "Best Mobile Direct Response" category for the Obama global text campaign as well.

"We've seen numerous developments in mobile content, bringing further improvements in the experience of accessing content via mobile phones, and hence greater opportunities for businesses to take advantage of the channel. According to industry research, demand for mobile content is expected to represent two-fifths of operators' revenue this year," said Visiongain's Henry Evan James, Delegate Manager for the event. "We look forward to watching innovative leaders like Clickatell and the progress they make in this fast moving market."

Recognized for its "Best Mobile Messaging Campaign," Clickatell implemented two successful, distinct mobile campaigns to deliver SMS excerpts to people around the globe during the Cairo and Ghana historic speeches given by President Obama. Creating an industry first "Mobile Town Hall Without Borders," this mobile text campaign reached the masses of people who might not traditionally have a ‘voice’ during these events. To view a video of the white house administration talking about the success of the Ghana event, please view http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/White-House-Press-Briefing-7/15/09/. Actual SMS responses from the speeches can still be viewed on http://www.america.gov/ghana_sms_map.html.

The esteemed MCA "Industry Personality of the Year Award," presented to Pieter de Villiers today, was judged upon those individuals who have made significant progress in the mobile industry sector. The only winner in this category, de Villiers founded Clickatell in 2000 and has built the company into a leading global mobile messaging provider serving a variety of vertical markets including mobile financial services, healthcare, government, mobile social networking, retail, and more. With more than 8,300 customers, Clickatell has connections to >790 carriers, serving >220 countries, reaching billions of people.

"This is quite an honor, we are pleased to be given both of these awards from Visiongain, a leading global research firm. Working since 2000 to help enable businesses, communities and governments worldwide to better inform, interact and communicate with their constituents via SMS, has been the thrill of a lifetime. Most recently, with the US State Department and President Obama's White House Administration, we've seen once again the profound and positive impact SMS can have on people around the world. Clickatell is very proud of our unique role in the industry and look forward to continuing this type of innovative work with our growing list of customers across a variety of industries – after all, they are the real winners in all of this," concluded Pieter de Villiers, Clickatell CEO.