Excellent fit in situations makes ACL Communications a differentiator

ACL Mobile claims to be a one stop shop for all business communications needs. They enable businesses to engage their customers across multiple channels which include SMS infrastructure, Voice solutions, WhatsApp, Axiom and AI backed marketing automation platform.

Recently, an acquisition announcement has been made of ACL Mobile by global cloud communications platform Sinch on an account of Rs 535 crore. In a chat VARINDIA, Sanjay K Goyal, Founder & CEO at ACL Mobile has shared his insights on the acquisition announcement, Indian market, their latest technologies and target verticles.
 

Indian enterprise communication market as an opportunity

Sanjay feels India is an attractive destination owing to its fast growth, large market base, rising income and favorable demographics. On this note he says, “We are the second largest mobile market in the world with 1.2 billion mobile subscribers and 50% smartphone penetration. It is a rapidly digitalising economy second only to Indonesia with the world’s highest data usage per smartphone at 9.8 GB/month. These drivers have increased the consumption of digital services in India and require support of push technologies such as SMS, Voice, Email, and more recently RCS and WhatsApp which has 400 million active users in the country. So, India’s market size is huge for CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) providers and the flexibility and scalability extended by them can be very appealing for enterprises that are looking to seize the opportunity and deliver effective communication to customers.”

He further continues, “We developed the first ever messaging platform to connect businesses with customers via SMS in 2003 and in 2019 we delivered more than 45 billion customer messages.  Our annual messaging volume growth for the past three years has been at an excess of 50% and we are trusted by more than 500 enterprise customers which includes leading financial institutions like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak, State bank of India and IndusInd Bank who rely on our technology. Our customers in other segments include a wide range of businesses such as Amway, Flipkart, MakeMyTrip and OLX.”

The strategic changes and the Sinch deal

Sinch is a global leader in cloud communications and the messaging provider. They are leaders across North America, Latin America, and Europe. With the acquisition of ACL, Sinch achieves a significant scale in the second largest mobile market. The combined entity can expand their existing direct global connectivity which will ensure superior quality, service and wider reach. ACL Mobile is benefitted from market growth while they continue to win the market share.

Discussing about the deal Sanjay says, “With the current synergies, both ACL Mobile and Sinch will grow by adding new capabilities to their existing product set. At ACL, we look forward to bringing in market leading products under our globalization strategy such as Chatbot(s) and video messaging. Our industry leading, on-premise communications platform, Axiom will help Sinchto provide new value-added services to their customers especially in the BFSI sector. There will be product and innovation-based collaborations between both companies, with an aim to leverage the market specific advantages of India such as low cost of SMS, availability of resources and more.”

Target verticals

Sanjay claims to have a strong customer base across multiple industries and sectors with a leading position in Banking, financial and insurance industry. ACL Mobile works with more than 50% leading BFSI clients in the country and has a strong foothold in other major sectors like e-commerce, retail and government.   

ACL has always been at the forefront of designing solutions that enhance the next level of communications between businesses and their customers. He says, “In the past 20 years since we started, we have built the scale and the infrastructure required for massive scale communication workflows for businesses. What differentiates ACL is our excellent fit in situations where an enterprise looks for high-quality delivery, at low latency, with volumes in the billions. We processed 47 billion messages in 2019 with a commitment of 99.999% infrastructure up time and less than 300 milliseconds platform latency.”

Leveraging latest technologies 

Since the pandemic, ACL Mobile has helped their customers to stay connected with their customers by providing a flexible communication structure that can adapt and scale rapidly. Sanjay boosts, “Our business continuity plan helped us in adapting to this new and challenging time. There have been certain industries like retail and e-commerce where the operational recovery rate is much faster. The pandemic has accelerated the previous trends such as omnichannel selling, inside-sales, tech-enabled sales and e-commerce.”

At Last

Sanjay shares that they have already started seeing recovery from June onwards. “If we compare our messaging volumes this month, they are higher by 10% compared to same month last year. We are working with our enterprise customers across verticals to help them use WhatsApp as the new communications medium. We see several new use cases emerging. We believe this channel has the potential to change the face of business to customer communications,” concludes Sanjay.