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Published on April 23, 2008

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation

Crie, a local mobile software house, formerly known as Createch Software, has been acquired by DTAC, one of Thailand's largest mobile-phone operators.

The acquisition was completed early this month after year-long negotiations. The deal gives DTAC a 51-per-cent stake in the company.

DTAC will oversee the marketing efforts, brand creation and investment budgeting for mobile-application development.

Crie was set up by a group of Kasetsart University computer engineering graduates in 2002 with a registered capital of only Bt1 million.

Nattachai Ungsriwong, managing director of Crie, said the company's goal is to develop software for mobile phones, especially for the consumer segment. The company aims to develop mobile applications for next-generation mobile networks such as 3G and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA.

He said video streaming, television on mobiles and social Web hold great potential on high-speed networks. However, for now the company is focusing on upgrading its existing applications such as Smart Chat and Push Mail.

Smart Chat was designed to allow mobile-phone users to be available on MSN on the go through a mobile device. This program also helped cellular-network operators encourage usage of mobile Internet.

"Today, there are around 30,000 unique mobile IP addresses signing on to Smart Chat every day. We share the revenue with the operators. This program has been a big source of revenue for us," Nattachai said.

The push-mail application allows users to get new e-mail messages which hit their webmail inboxes immediately. Presently, there are more than 100,000 mobile unique IP addresses which use the push-mail application.

 Crie's first product was called TSMS. The program was designed to help Symbian-phone users easily create short messages in Thai.

TSMS Version 1.0 was distributed free of charge. The move was designed to test the market as well as the features of the program. Later, the company released TSMS Pro, the software's commercial version. It was the company's first commercial product and helped generate over Bt1 million in revenue.

"TSMS Pro was distributed through four dealers including DPC, Bisstel, UD and Siemens. About 100,000 licenses of the software have been sold," Nattachai said.

Subsequently, the company developed several other programs including Smart Thai, which is a dictionary program, Smart Chat as well as a mobile trading application. These programs helped the company post a revenue of Bt4 million in its third year.

"The revenue increased to Bt7 million in 2005 and Bt11 million in 2006. Though we can't disclose last year's revenue figures yet, it is expected to be more than Bt11 million," Nattachai said. The company now plans to target overseas markets and DTAC is expected to help in this initiative.

      At a glance

n DTAC has acquired a 51 per cent stake in Crie and will oversee the marketing and development of the company's products.

n Crie focuses on mobile applications for the consumer segment and is looking at 3G and HSDPA as an area of opportunity.

n As of now, the company is working on upgrades of its existing applications such as Smart Chat and Push Mail.