Partnership will bring starts screen technology to Airtel Customers in Sri Lanka

San Francisco, Calif.,, March 5th 2014: Celltick, a global leader in mobile initiated commerce have entered in to a partnership with Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. With this partnership, Celltick’s Start interface will provide 1.7 million active Airtel subscribers in Sri Lanka with fast access to their favorite and most frequently used applications and functions, as soon as they wake their phone.

Start is a next-generation intelligent Android interface that provides interactive functionality on the start screen of the device, and allows subscribers to easily personalize their device to make it much more enjoyable. Start allows users to access what matters to them most from the start screen, which gives them the opportunity to launch up to 24 apps, creating an easier to navigate interface, while the back end recommendation engine learns and adapts the start screen according to users’ behavior.

With Celltick’s Start, Airtel can bring more value to their subscribers in Sri Lanka, while providing a means to more effectively engage them through the customer relationship lifecycle to encourage monetization and brand loyalty. As an organization that provides services that are accessible current and relevant to the modern user , Airtel subscribers will benefit from access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as the ability to launch text, email and even the camera function without unlocking the phone.

“At Airtel, we continue to set the trend by launching new products and services that focuses on giving customers offerings that are innovative, current and relevant for them. We have also been dedicated to bringing mobile telephony along with the latest value added services (VAS) to the masses since the day of our inception,” stated Suren Goonewardene, Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director – Bharti Airtel Lanka. “We are very happy to partner with Celltick to continue our commitment to bring the best in mobile services to our subscribers. True to our brand promise, we strive to enrich and make a difference in the lives of our Sri Lankan subscribers on a daily basis, and we feel strongly that this partnership will help contribute in keeping up to that promise.”

“We are very excited to partner with a company like Airtel as it continues in its pursuit of bringing the best innovative mobile services to the people of Sri Lanka,” said Abraham Punnoose, Managing Director of, Celltick India. “By initiating Start across their devices, Airtel is not only creating new lines of revenue from data and content but also connecting to more users, but it is also creating an effective means of communicating to subscribers on their Android devices through engaging content. We look forward to the positive effects Start will bring to the millions of people in Sri Lanka.”

The growing Start ecosystem includes hundreds of themes and plug-ins that are available for download on Google Play. In 2013, Celltick powered billions of mobile-initiated commerce transactions for virtual and physical goods serving more than 140 million active consumers across 25 countries.

Bharti Airtel Lanka commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka on January 12, 2009, and was the fastest operator to reach 1 million customers in Sri Lanka. With its network footprint panned out across the country and capturing strategic ranking positions in various areas in less than three years of operations, Airtel has emerged as Sri Lanka’s fastest expanding network. Registered under the Board of Investment in Sri Lanka, Airtel Lanka provides digital mobile services into Sri Lanka which includes voice telephony, voice mail, data services and GSM based services. The Company has also received accreditations such as ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 22301 for its continuous efforts towards information security and business continuity.

About Bharti Airtel: Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 275 million customers across its operations at the end of May 2013. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com

About Bharti Airtel Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd: Bharti Airtel Lanka commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka on January 12, 2009, and was the fastest operator to reach 1 million customers in Sri Lanka. With its network footprint panned out across the country and capturing strategic ranking positions in various areas in less than three years of operations, Airtel has emerged as Sri Lanka’s fastest expanding network. Registered under the Board of Investment in Sri Lanka, Airtel Lanka provides digital mobile services into Sri Lanka which includes voice telephony, voice mail, data services and GSM based services. The Company has also received accreditations such as ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 22301 for its continuous efforts towards information security and business continuity. To know more please visit, www.airtel.lk