Chikka.com, with its downloadable mobile Instant Messenger allowing users to send free text messages to practically all mobile phones in the Philippines, won the award under the e-services category with votes coming in from the general public through the awards’ special website and via SMS powered by Softrigger Interactive Inc.
Chikka shared the limelight with popular Clickthecity.com, adjudged Best Website, under the e-services category.
Instant Messaging – the exchange of quick chat messages with other Internet users – is immensely popular in countries like the United States.
But in the Philippines, IM may be viewed as "texting" from a PC, since "we really are more familiar with SMS," said Dennis Mendiola, chief executive officer of Chikka Asia Inc.
Chikka Txt Messenger was launched in the Philippines in 2001 and has since become the most widely used PC Instant Messenger in the country, owing largely to its connectivity to Globe Telecom and Smart, local GSM operators that have sparked what is now a worldwide messaging phenomenon.
"It has always been the intention of Chikka to make Instant Messaging truly mobile. And we do not only mean connecting it to mobile phones. We mean all the features of a standard IM being accessible from a phone. We mean making your mobile phone number the same as your chikka ID which you use to log on to your PC," Mendiola said.
In fact, features such as unified GSM numbers and IDs to access the PC application were patented by Philippine-based Chikka. The "one account system" is currently enjoyed only by Philippine mobile subscribers so that when one logs off from his PC, he continues to receive his Chikka messages on his mobile phone from anywhere in the world.
As the use of IM and SMS continues to grow exponentially around the globe, Chikka’s mobile IM platform is now being readied for deployment internationally.