VeriSign's messaging and mobile media group has significantly expanded its SMS reach in Asia by added 30 new customers in the last six months.
Group president Charles Meyers told Telecomasia.net in Macau that Asia is the group's largest area of investment. He says VeriSign is leveraging its strong US footprint to attract Asian customers, who can eliminate the messaging middleman and cut costs. North America accounts for 85-90% of its messaging business but expects Asia to take a 20-25% share within three years.
The company plans to open a Singapore office for sales and client services early next year. It currently has an R&D center in Bangalore as well 20 sales, customer service and engineering staff in Beijing.
SK Telink, a subsidiary of SK Telecom, announced at the Mobile Asia Congress that it has selected VeriSign as its international messaging gateway. The agreement broadens VeriSign's reach by 45 million mobile subscribers.
In July it concluded a deal with Bayan Telecommunications of the Philippines.
While in some markets it is going direct to clients, because of its limited scale and the size of the Asian region it will also use channel partners. "A company of our size can't touch all customers directly," said Meyers.
It focuses on enterprise segments that value high reliability, such as financial services. It's also exploring the travel, health care and education sectors. "We're not interested in those looking for the cheapest delivery," he said.
VeriSign a year ago combined all its mobile assets, many of which had been acquired in last couple of years, into a stand-alone messaging and media group and sold off a number of poor performing or low-growth pieces.
Its two main businesses are inter-carrier and enterprise messaging but it also handles integrated MMS and premium aggregation, which Meyers said has been impacted by the financial crisis and is not a focus in Asia. Enterprising messaging is its fastest growing business.
VeriSign's open connectivity gateway connects about 600 carriers in more than 150 countries and more than 2.4 billion subscribers worldwide.