Twenty years ago, Clickatell, a global leader in mobile communications and chat commerce became the first company to connect the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform – the internet – with the world’s fastest-growing communications platform – the mobile phone.
Today, Clickatell said it was pioneering chat commerce – the biggest transformative chapter in the unfolding digital economy – to enable brands to connect, interact, and transact with their customers on mobile messaging and chat channels, anywhere, reliably, securely, and in real-time on the world’s most popular chat apps.
Consumers spend 90 per cent of their screen time on five mobile apps, and chat apps rank number one. They prefer digital commerce experiences and expect to be able to buy goods and access services 24/7 from anywhere.
A recent Aberdeen research report, ‘Maximize the ROI of Chat in Commerce Activities,’ indicated that companies incorporating chat capabilities enjoy 75 per cent greater year-over-year growth in annual revenue and 89 per cent greater annual growth in cross-sell and up-sell revenue.
“Chat commerce is how the availability of financial opportunities will unfold for the next billion people,” said Pieter de Villiers, the Chief Executive Officer at Clickatell.
COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation across businesses around the world, including digital commerce, and people are embracing commerce via chat.
“The next billion people and millions of merchants will not be onboarded through websites, email, and point of sale devices, but through digital and chat commerce experiences,” de Villiers added.
Despite the pandemic, Clickatell is experiencing rapid growth and recently appointed Glen Braganza as its Chief Finance Officer and Jennifer Shambroom as the Chief Marketing Officer. The veterans of fintech, payments, and the mobile ecosystem respectively bring substantial insight and leadership to position Clickatell for further growth.
“We aim to grow by ten times in the next six years. A larger Clickatell can have a bigger and better impact in the world,” added de Villiers.
