Charles F.  Moreira

What’s do you do as Group COO of AKN Messaging?
I manage the operations and sales in our Malaysian headquarters and our six subsidiaries in China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Pakistan.

What does your company do?
Since 1999, we’ve been providing our own SMS and MMS messaging services, mobile applications, WAP content and services and 3G content, as well as aggregated foreign content to end users, the corporate sector and mobile operators across all these countries.
We sell content like ringtones and wallpapers, and Java games to end users through our EBuzz4u (www.ebuzz4u.com) and MobileBoxx (www.33131.com.my) portals and also run SMS quizzes, campaigns and contests.

We also provide messaging gateways for banks, insurance companies, security firms and universities to communicate with their customers via SMS. For example, HSBC uses our system to send SMS notifications to their customers. We also host products and services like Maxis Sports Zone, including Maxis SportsTV, Celcom Mood Swingers and DiGi’s Islamic Portal and gaming services for mobile operators.

That must be pretty challenging, isn’t it?
Yes indeed, especially now that many more competitors, including multinationals have entered the fray since we first started and our big challenge is to stay ahead of them. Your job must take up most of your time, with having to take care of your business across the region?
Thankfully our regional VPs help managing our foreign subsidiaries, while our CEO, SB Lim also travels a lot, all of which help even out the workload

What do you enjoy most about your company?
Watching it grow since its inception about seven years ago and winning the Frost & Sullivan Mobile Content Developer Award in 2005 and 2006.



Is this your first job?
No. I first worked with Dataco (M) Sdn Bhd which provided premium interactive voice response services through 600 numbers if you recall.

What do you enjoy most about your travels?
In terms of work, I get to understand how the mobile industry develops at a different pace in different countries, like in Pakistan where mobile services are in their infancy and Hong Kong and Singapore where they are matured and very advanced and everywhere, we need to build relationships with operators, communications regulators and so on.
Personally, I enjoy the different cultures, sites, people and food.

What food do you like best?
Everything, though I guess I like Thai food best, especially tom yam.

What do you do in your spare time?
I never miss a Liverpool game and I always find time to go to the gym and to play futsal.

What do you think of 3G?
I’m very excited about 3G and we are developing content and services for 3G but since we are targeting the mass market, with only 250,000 3G subscribers out of 22 million, 3G is still niche in Malaysia and contributes only a small proportion of our total revenues, though it could become mass market in the next 12 to 18 months.

Will 3G take off in a big way in Malaysia in 2007?
Probably at the end of 2007 or early 2008

What do you think of the mobile industry overall?
It’s never boring and there’s always something new and our company and the industry have grown and the technology is always evolving.