India’s Bharti Airtel (News - Alert) has upgraded its short message service (SMS), enabling all subscribers to launch browsers on their cell phones though their handset does not support Internet.

 The service, which allows users to activate a search on their SMS screen, is designed by UK-based mobile media company Affle.

 

This not only allows mobile internet users to launch browsers in their mobile phones, but also opens up a potentially huge revenue stream for service providers by delivering contextual advertising on the search results, Airtel said in a press release.

 

 The Short Message & Search 2.0 (SMS2.0) application is available to users for free. To download SMS2.0, Airtel customers have to send a SMS request. However, users won’t be charged for downloading, and there is no change in the SMS tariff rates under all existing plans.

 

Speaking at the launch, chief marketing officer of Bharti Airtel (News - Alert) Sanjay Gupta said, "The uptake of the SMS2.0 has been very encouraging and we are introducing search through SMS. This new upgrade service will thus allow Airtel users to search  Airtel Live, internet, local search, jobs and property listings from their SMS screen.”

 

Airtel expects its Search on mobile phones to play the role that the Search is playing on computer screens.

 

“Our research shows that the Search behavior of users on the mobile phone is very different from the internet and hence integration of exciting local and other user relevant Search options makes this experience enticing”, said Anuj Khanna, CEO of Affle.

 

Experts believe the service may open up new source of revenue as it allows delivering contextual advertising on the search results.

 

Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s leading integrated telecom services provider with an aggregate of 75 million customers.