Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Another startup has entered the rapidly growing field of companies seeking to exploit the nascent market for advertising to mobile phones: Xip will deliver information in response to an SMS containing the advertiser's code sent to Xip's phone number.
Last month UK company, Txt4 entered the local market trialling a system that enables consumers to send an SMS to the same 13 xxx xxx number that advertisers routinely use to receive customer enquiries..
This latest entrant, Xip Mobile Pty Ltd, is delivering its service on the mobile marketing platform developed by Singapore company, BeepCast Pte Ltd which it has licensed for use in Australia. Xip Mobile is a joint venture between Australian digital advertising company, Xip Media, and BeepCast. Xip Media in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Melbourne-based Bill Express Limited (ASX: BXP), a company focused on electronic product distribution, payments processing and in-store promotional media.
Xip Mobile www.xipmobile.com.au (pronounced 'zip') has launched its new 'Xip Code' service in the Real Estate market but says it will roll out rapidly across other verticals over the coming months.
The Xip Codes are displayed on 'property for sale' signs. Interested buyers can then request information regarding that property via their mobile phones by SMSing the code to 19 947 947 (19 xip xip). While this is a premium number, callers are charged only at the standard rate for SMS, and if they are on a plan with several hundred SMS bundled in, their SMS to Xip are included in that bundle.
In the case of real estate adverts, users receive in response basic information on the property via SMS, and the option to receive more detailed information by email, a return call from the agent, or a sales contract in the post. Users need send their email address once only: it is then stored and linked to their mobile number by Xip.
At present xip codes are arbitrary and meaningless, for example ADZP. However the company plans to introduce, generic, real words like 'car' or 'house' which will be available at a premium for exclusive use by an advertiser.
David Bass
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