Tag: Digital Services
ayoba is pleased to share the achievement of a significant milestone with the super-app reaching 35 million monthly active users across the African continent in December 2023. This growth is attributed to the heightened retention rates and organic adoption, fuelled by an enhanced user experience in the communication suite and a robust content offering that includes music, channels, games, and services. The expansion has been further propelled by the inclusion of users from new territories such as Kenya, Egypt, Mali, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Botswana.
Selorm Adadevoh, MTN Group Chief Commercial Officer shares, “Empowering connections, fostering innovation, and charting the course for a digital future, ayoba is more than an app – it’s a transformative journey. Like the continent itself, ayoba has been resilient, dynamic, and forward-thinking. As we reflect on the milestones of 2023, it’s clear that our dedication to innovation and user-centricity has propelled ayoba to new heights. With gratitude for the past and a vision for the future, we embarked on 2024 with a steadfast commitment to continuing to evolve ayoba delivering enriched experiences for its growing user base in Africa. Our focus remains unwavering on empowering communities, driving innovation, and building a sustainable ecosystem for long-term growth, ayoba is not just an app; it’s a testament to the power of connectivity.“
ayoba saw strong growth in 2023 in many areas of the service. Usage of Music continued to increase via ayoba’s popular playlist service* in collaboration with Boomplay, which ended the year in excess of 600 million streams. Amongst many other growth drivers were improvements in the messaging vertical and popularity of the new ‘Explore’ landing page.
Looking ahead to 2024, Burak Akinci, ayoba’s CEO, expresses optimism, saying “We are very proud of our achievements in 2023, and we have a lot to look forward to in the coming year. We begin the year with a strong offering for Football fans including multiple daily news updates, games, themed playlists to name a few. As we move into the year, our product and content teams have many updates coming across Messaging and Groups, User Stories, Music, Games and more. Our focus in 2024 will extend to the B2B front, introducing features to benefit our partners and leverage our growing ecosystem and traffic.“
In 2023, ayoba successfully launched content marketing attracting partnerships with top brands such as Cadbury’s, Chappies. The year ahead will see a heightened focus on expanding partnerships with known brands, as new Ad Sales options are introduced to capitalise on the growing user base and engagement.
On the content front, ayoba has secured new high-profile partners, from international NGOs to the localised Dycoco offering, adding more French comedy to the highly popular Adamant Media series on the platform. In plans for 2024, includes the introduction of more podcasts, playlists, education, sports news, lifestyle updates and uplifting with a focus on short-form video.
ayoba is set to launch an updated range of services, including a communications API, new payment partners and improvements to its partner portal. The newly launched ‘Discover’ Page in the Services vertical offers new traffic drivers for partners, as well as a curated services offering.
Messaging has always been a core focus for ayoba. Following on the successful re-engineering of the messaging module in 2023 which included a design and features refresh; ayoba will turn its attention to commercial features in 2024. This includes the introduction of business accounts with related support and a suite of business-oriented features.
*in partnership with Boomplay
MTN Group reported a resilient underlying operating performance for 2023 in the face of tough macro headwinds, declaring a total dividend of 330 cents per share. Inflation remained elevated in several key markets and the sharp devaluation of the Nigerian naira impacted reported results for both MTN Nigeria and MTN Group.
Amid sustained high demand for data and fintech services, MTN Group increased the number of active data subscribers by more than 9% to 150 million – half the total subscriber base – and active Mobile Money (MoMo) users by 5% to 72.5 million. Total subscribers increased to 295 million across the Group’s markets.
In the year to end-December 2023, data traffic on MTN’s networks (excluding joint ventures) grew by more than a third, with usage up to an average of more than 6GB per user per month. To sustain this growth, as well as network coverage and quality, MTN deployed capital expenditure (excluding leases) of R41 billion in the year.
The volume of fintech transactions also increased by around a third to 17.6 billion, with the value of transactions across the fintech platform up at US$272 billion, driven by growth of advanced services in payments, banktech and remittance solutions.
In South Africa, where the business faced loadshedding challenges, subsidiary MTN South Africa deployed R10 billion of capex to drive network capacity expansion and power resilience. More than R2.6 billion of this was investment in power and security resilience. By the end of the year, network availability across the entire network reached around 95%. For the sites where we had completed our resilience investment, we recorded network availability of more than 98%.
MTN South Africa reported solid growth in the consumer postpaid, enterprise and wholesale businesses. In the second half of the year there were also sequential improvements in the consumer prepaid business.
Strategic delivery
In the year, MTN Group made good strategic progress in the development of our fintech and fibre businesses. A key highlight was concluding an agreement for payment network processor Mastercard to invest up to US$200 million for a minority stake in MTN Group Fintech at a valuation of US$5.2 billion.
“We are excited about this partnership, particularly the commercial agreements, which we expect to support the accelerated growth of our fintech business,” said MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita. “In 2023, we also advanced our work to structurally separate the fibre business, Bayobab, with engagements to secure regulatory clearances in key markets being the main priority.”
In the year, Bayobab and Africa50 partnered to develop Project East2West, a terrestrial fibre optic cable network to help bridge Africa’s connectivity gap by improving broadband access for the continent’s landlocked countries in particular.
Among the Group’s other strategic progress highlights were the 13.1% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions. This is part of our environmental commitment to reach Net Zero emissions by 2040. We also finalised the sale of MTN Afghanistan, which completed the Group’s exit of our consolidated subsidiaries in the Middle East.
Resilient results
In the year, MTN Group’s finances withstood a challenging external environment, marked by elevated inflation (averaging a blended 16.7%), forex volatility and paucity, and ongoing political tensions in some markets, most notably in Sudan.
In constant currency terms, MTN Group service revenue grew 13.5% to R210 billion, with data revenue making up R84 billion and voice revenue contributing R83 billion. Fintech revenue totalled R21 billion.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation grew by almost 10% in constant currency terms to R90 billion. The Group delivered expense efficiencies of R2.6 billion and kept key debt ratios within covenant levels.
Outlook and priorities
Looking ahead, Mupita said MTN remained focused on executing on Ambition 2025: sustaining operational momentum, accelerating the platforms strategy, driving expense and capital efficiencies, and continuing to strengthen the balance sheet.
“We are anticipating that the macro conditions in our trading environment will persist in 2024, with naira volatility and elevated inflation the key challenges we will need to navigate. MTN plans to invest R35-39 billion in 2024 to position the company to capture the structural demand for data and fintech services across Africa,” he said.
“We maintain our overall medium-term guidance framework, however simplifying our objective for fintech,” Mupita said, adding that MTN was encouraged by the outlook for the fintech business, given the solid growth in advanced services. “The partnership with Mastercard positions the business well to scale faster and we are excited about the commercial launches of card issuance, acceptance and remittances across the footprint.”
African super app ayoba has reached a new milestone – surpassing 30 million monthly active users. This remarkable achievement is a testament to the app’s growing popularity, particularly in focus territories such as Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Moreover, ayoba has successfully broadened its user base into new markets, such as Kenya and Tanzania, contributing to its rapid growth since passing the 25M MAU mark in May 2023.
“ayoba’s growth reflects our commitment to delivering valuable, user-focused services. This achievement is a significant step in our ongoing journey to deepen connectivity and digital inclusion across Africa and signifies the trust and reliance users have placed in ayoba as a platform that enriches their daily lives. It also serves as a catalyst for further innovation as we continue to enhance the app’s features to meet the diverse needs of our growing user base,” says Jens Schulte-Bockum, MTN Group Chief Operating Officer.
In 2023, ayoba focused on enhancing communication and content features. These have been well received, as evidenced by a notable increase in music streaming, messaging, and overall user retention. Card Views in the channels vertical have soared, with users viewing over 200M cards this year alone, focusing on news, sports, and comedy. Ayoba also recently announced its first commissioned video drama series, ‘Nite Nite’, produced in Ghana and its inaugural African games, produced by Usiku Games in Kenya.
“Our plan for the year is rolling out strongly, “explains CEO Burak Akinci. “ We’re incredibly grateful for the trust and engagement from our growing community of users. Our strategic execution this year has been laser-focused on what matters most to them. The positive market response validates our approach to offer user-centric features and localised content. As we look ahead, our immediate focus is on an enhanced gaming experience set to pilot in South Africa. This is part of our broader vision to make ayoba an integral part of daily life across the continent.“
The introduction of the new ‘Explore’ landing page marks a significant advancement for the Android version of the app. This page is live across all key markets, streamlining content discovery and user access to relevant and trending content.
In line with its commitment to sustainable long-term impact in key markets, ayoba continues to advance its integrated ecosystem development approach revolving around the MicroApps vertical. This quarter has seen the launch of a key initiative in Nigeria, the ayoba SME Accelerator program. Specifically designed to digitise, empower, and accelerate the growth of small businesses, the program aims to foster innovation, enhance competitiveness, drive growth, and create sustainable employment opportunities.
Furthering its impact, ayoba’s e-Track Portfolio, managed at the Solution Space at the University of Cape Town, has also seen significant success. The program – a two-phase early-stage venture acceleration and capacity-building program designed for high-impact entrepreneurs in South Africa and beyond, has recently welcomed an additional 15 high-impact startups to the portfolio.
In May 2023, ayoba hosted a high-profile continent-wide Gaming Hackathon to foster innovation and creativity in game development tailored for an African audience. The event attracted hundreds of participants, and the top 3 teams have been selected. Their games are soon to be featured on the app, adding to ayoba’s expanding gaming portfolio.
Born from a partnership with MTN, ayoba is available on all networks. Ayoba users in certain participating territories enjoy complimentary daily data, amplifying its value proposition*. With this momentum, ayoba is on track to achieving 100 million monthly active users by 2025, in line with MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy.
*VoIP and video call are not zero rated for MTN subscribers
In the first half of 2023, MTN Group delivered resilient results, advanced our strategy by partnering with Mastercard on the MTN fintech business, and progressed plans to exit Afghanistan. This was achieved in a difficult operating environment marked by elevated inflation, weaker local currencies and regulatory developments across our 19 markets.
“We delivered a resilient performance in H1 23 and made good strategic progress against a tough macro backdrop,” said MTN Group President and CEO Ralph Mupita.
“In South Africa, we were very encouraged by the improved network availability on the back of our power-resilience investment, resulting in a stronger Q2 23 performance than Q1 23,” he said. By end-June, MTN South Africa’s network availability was more than 90% despite severe electricity shortages across the country.
“In Nigeria, we delivered a very strong operational result, having navigated the cash shortages in Q1 23 and increased inflation,” Mupita said. “The policy changes implemented in Nigeria in Q2 23 have short-term negative impacts, but we see these as being very constructive for the investment climate in the medium to longer term.”
MTN Group’s service revenue grew 15% to almost R108 billion in constant-currency terms. This was driven by increases in revenue from data services of 24% and from fintech services of 22%. Revenue from voice services increased 6% in the period.
At the end of June 2023, we had 292 million subscribers with whom we worked to create shared value. This subscriber base – 4% higher than the same period last year – benefited from lower data rates and improved access to broadband services.
To facilitate the digital economy, we increased the number of active data users by more than 7% to nearly 140 million; reported a 19% increase in overall data traffic; and improved data affordability by reducing the average effective rate per megabyte by more than 22%.
We continued to invest in world-class networks and platforms for the people of Africa, committing R17.2 billion in capital expenditure in the first six months of 2023. The Group’s balance sheet remained strong, with all key metrics well within the limits of our loan covenants.
Driven by solid revenue growth and improved efficiencies, adjusted headline earnings per share (HEPS) increased by 25% to 749 cents and adjusted return on equity (ROE) expanded by one percentage point to 24.4%. These were in line with our medium-term guidance.
The MTN Group Fintech business delivered on our rapid expansion plans. The volume of transactions increased by 37% to 8.3 billion in the first half of the year. These were executed by 61 million active MoMo customers.
Following the bespoke process to identify and potentially introduce strategic minority investors into MTN Group Fintech, we executed commercial agreements with Mastercard to support the acceleration and growth of our fintech business’s payments and remittance services.
MTN and Mastercard also signed a memorandum of understanding which provides for a minority investment by Mastercard into Group Fintech based on a total enterprise valuation of about US$5.2 billion for the business on a cash and debt-free basis. Signing of the definitive investment agreements is expected to occur in the very near term as we approach finalisation of customary due diligence. The closing of the investment will be subject to customary closing conditions.
We continued to work to simplify our portfolio. The process for MTN Group to exit Afghanistan in an orderly fashion through the sale of our entire shareholding to Investcom AF, and affiliate company of M1, remains well on track. The transaction received conditional regulatory approval to proceed, pending the submission of relevant documentation to the Afghanistan Regulatory Authority.
Looking ahead, MTN will keep working to create shared value across our markets. “We are focused on the continued execution of our Ambition 2025, which remains relevant in the current macroeconomic volatility and presents attractive scope for growth,” said Mupita.
“As we manage the challenges in our operating environment, as well as the near-term impacts on our top-line and margins, we maintain our medium-term guidance.”
Africa’s super app ayoba today announced the achievement of a significant milestone – surpassing the 25 million monthly active users’ mark as we celebrate our fourth anniversary.
This is up from 20 million monthly active users in December 2022. The platform is available globally but has a strong a focus on the African continent. Among key territories are Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda and The Republic of Congo.
“25 million is a significant milestone to pass on our fourth birthday,” says CEO Burak Akinci. “Our journey has been transformative, and the positive response from our users fuels our drive for innovation. Our users are at the heart of our progress, and we are grateful for their support.”
So far in 2023, ayoba has focused on enhancing communication and content features. These have been well received, with a 35% increase in messages, and a 16% increase in both stories and VoIP calls. Users have viewed 88 million cards across all channels, in topics such as entertainment, education, food, fashion and more.
“The first four months of 2023 was a period of significant growth and development for ayoba. We have improved our socialisation and messaging functionalities, enhanced our microapp experience and added many more features,” Akinci says.
The introduction of the new ‘explore’ landing page marks a significant advance for ayoba’s Android version. This page, currently in pilot phase, will be rolled out to all key territories in the future. It brings a simplified design for easy navigation through ayoba’s curated high-quality content and highlights our themes to our users.
The microapp’s vertical has also seen significant evolution in Q1 at ayoba, as a direct shortcut to the vertical has been added on the bottom navigation bar. This section, referred to as an evolving ‘ecosystem for small African business’ – and some larger ones – allows service providers easy access to the existing ayoba user base with minimal effort. The most popular micro-apps currently are ‘live scores’ (allowing users to get the latest sports scores), ‘ayoba gifting’, ‘video play apps’, sports, and shopping.
Born out of a partnership with MTN, ayoba is available on all networks. In certain participating territories, users on ayoba receive complimentary daily data, amplifying its value proposition*. ayoba’s growth trajectory has it on track to achieve 100 million monthly active users by 2025 in line with MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy.
*VoIP and video call are not zero rated for MTN subscribers
MTN, in partnership with ayoba, Africa’s auper app, has reached an exciting 20 million monthly active users on 5th of December 2022. This represents growth of 100% compared to the 10 million monthly active users recorded at the same time last year.
“We celebrate this milestone and are pleased that, through ayoba, we are able to provide accessible communications, so that millions of people across our markets can enjoy the benefits of a modern connected life”, says MTN Group Chief Operating Officer, Jens Schulte-Bockum.
ayoba is available globally with a focus on the African continent. Key markets in MTN’s footprint include Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda and The Republic of Congo, giving ayoba a strong footprint across Africa.
ayoba was also in the news recently when it was voted “Top Innovative Technology and Telecom Product of the Year” at the Ghana National Communications Awards in November 2022.
ayoba CEO Burak Akinci said: “It has been an exciting year. Providing the best experience to our users has always been our top priority and we are working very hard to improve our service every day. It is a pleasure to see that our efforts are well received and appreciated by our users all around Africa.
“This achievement is the result of listening to our users, understanding their needs and working on multiple aspects of our platform to serve them better. We would like to thank our users who never fail to provide feedback and insightful input.
“We will continue to develop what is a robust messaging service in ayoba, that continues to offer new functionalities, free music service that has grown to millions of streams, high quality games, a wide range of channels with curated local content, and hundreds of new MicroApps”
Strong engagement, growth in 2022 and diversity of content
ayoba has shown immense growth across all verticals this year. Leading the charge is the music streaming service, with its focus on local content and growth in streams of 174% in 2022. In terms of engagement, our users viewed 225 million cards across 150 channels on a variety of topics led by football updates, tech and entertainment news, food and fashion, rugby and other sports.
Our French language content was led by influencer Muriel Blanche and Adamant Media, with francophone comedy. In 2022, we launched three new Arabic channels providing growth in content for markets like Sudan, covering entrepreneurship, football and other issues.
In December 2022, the year on year growth for messaging was 125% (messages sent), games by 208% (plays) and MicroApps by 322% (sessions). Ayoba users posted 85 million stories, updating their friends and family on their activities and interests.
“This is a phenomenal endorsement of our ‘Made in Africa for the World’ strategy” continued Akinci. “We believe in the vast potential of African digital talent and do our best to support them, from training to hackathons and accelerator programmes. 2023 will be even more exciting with all the new features and services we plan to introduce to make the ayoba platform the gateway to the digital economy for start-ups across different markets in Africa.
ayoba is an application open to all networks developed as a partnership initiative with MTN. ayoba users receive free daily data in participating markets. The platform is part of MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy, which targets 100 million monthly active users by 2025.
10 reasons to use ayoba:
1. FREE TO USE: ayoba is free to use – including all of our amazing features! You need data to get onto the internet, but if you are on the MTN network in selected countries, you will get free data every day to use the app.
2. CHAT AND CALL NOW: Instantly send and receive text and voice messages, voice notes, as well as voice and video calls with any of your contacts. Please note that Voice and Video call are subject to standard data charges for all users.
3. SECURE: End-to-end encryption means that messages in a conversation cannot be read by anyone else.
4. FIND YOUR FRIENDS: Use your existing address book to quickly and easily connect with your contacts.
5. CHAT WITH EVERYONE: Send SMS text messages to anyone in your contact list, regardless of whether they’ve installed ayoba or not. If the friend you send to does not have the app, the message will be delivered by SMS. They can respond by SMS and it will come back into your app. This is a unique technology.
6. GROUP CHAT: The more the merrier! Set up group chats to easily communicate with friends and family in a single chat.
7. SHARING IS CARING: Share videos, images, audio, and other files with your contacts.
8. LET’S MEET: Share your real-time location with your ayoba contacts.
9. CHANNELS: Free access to consume all content across various categories ranging from news, sports, fashion, music, education to entertainment and much more, all within the ayoba app. All of our channels are Africa centric – such as the Black Star channel for Ghana, Scrolla Africa in IsiZulu, Yoruba & Hausa, Pulse Channels for Nigeria and Ghana covering business news, current affairs and entertainment; with over 20 artist channels highlighting African musicians.
10. LISTEN AND PLAY: Our free music service allows users to listen to trending songs in our fantastic playlists, featuring the best of local and international music. We have games that you can play as well, such as Subway Surfers, CR7 Strike, Car Rush Spore Hunter, BattleShip, Pinball, Solitaire and more. New content is added every day.
MTN in partnership with ayoba, Africa’s super app, has reached an exciting milestone of over 10 million monthly active users. 2021 has been a fast-paced year so far for ayoba, who celebrated its second year in operation in May 2021.
The ayoba platform aims to harness growth in the African digital economy by breaking down barriers such as limited access to the internet and digital services, low smartphone penetration, lack of locally relevant content, and affordability.
“We celebrate this milestone and are pleased that through ayoba we can provide access to affordable communications, so that millions of people across our markets can enjoy the benefits of a modern connected life”, says MTN Group Digital and Fintech Officer, Serigne Dioum.
“MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy is to drive digital and financial inclusion across Africa, via ayoba we intend to reach 100 million monthly active users by 2025, ensuring more people reap the social, economic, and developmental dividends of being online,” concludes Serigne.
In its two years of existence, ayoba has grown significantly and continues to be recognised by various bodies. In 2021, ayoba received the Best OTT Brand of the Year accolade at the Marketing World Awards and recently was awarded the Best Mobile App from Bonteh Digital Awards. Ayoba has also hosted two hackathons this year, with the aim of guiding young developers on micro-app development.
Commenting on the achievement, ayoba Chief Executive Officer, Burak Akinci said: “Our progress in 2021 has been considerable, growing in excess of 4 million users. This is a clear sign that the African market really enjoys ayoba, and we are here to stay. This growth is also due to the hard work of our team, and of course, the loyalty and enthusiasm of our users, who are always our first priority. We look forward to even bigger growth in 2022, as we see progress from the new features, content and general improvement that will be launched throughout the year.”
ayoba offers users access to digital and rich media services through channels, micro-apps, and payment solutions, embedded within a single African Super App. With over 180 content channels ranging from Sports, News, Music & Artists, Health & Wellness, Careers, Fashion & Beauty, Education and Travel – a huge increase from the 128 at the start of the year.
In addition, users now have access to a range of 35 micro-apps, including MTN Online School (SA) and MTN MoMo (Ghana), adding even more content to a deep and hyperlocalised offering.
We have also identified the gaps in our markets heightened by the pandemic, particularly in terms of the literacy of subscribers and through our education micro-app available in ayoba we have launched numerous channels with key strategic partners focused on specific areas of education ranging from entrepreneurial education to country-specific curriculum content for students, which include educational explainer videos on topics ranging from math, science, and the art of storytelling.
Ayoba users can send and receive encrypted messages in 22 diverse languages, share photos, videos, files, voice notes and even their location, and can also subscribe to live channels. Localised content is available through these channels that aim to entertain, educate, and empower communities.
Ayoba is available to MTN and non-MTN customers. MTN customers are automatically allocated free data to use the ayoba features[1] including messaging, browsing, gaming, and listening to music. Customers can download the free app data at www.ayoba.me. In addition, ayoba lite is now also available for web access at web.ayoba.me which is proving to be popular with users who are short on space on their devices. Voice and video calls are excluded from the free data provisions.
[1] With the exception of Benin
MTN, in partnership with ayoba, today launched a dynamic media campaign entitled: ‘Life inside ayoba’ that will bring the African super app to life. The campaign brings together all the features of the super app including chat, voice and video calling, channels, music via playlists, gaming, micro apps as well as payment facilities in some territories.
The campaign highlights the simplicity and versatility of the app, and the advantages a user gains in using all its exciting features.
“ayoba is a strategic platform for MTN as it harnesses Africa’s unique digital ecosystem and context. We believe it to be a triple-play opportunity to advance free messaging, content distribution and e-commerce powered by an open platform. Made in Africa for the World, ayoba is highly localised and tailored for African and Middle East consumer needs. This campaign is perfect for our markets, it is vibrant and relevant and is sure to appeal to all who use it,” says Serigne Dioum, MTN Group Chief Digital and Fintech Officer.
MTN Group’s digital revenue increased by 23.8%* in the six months to end-June 2021, supported by the greater uptake of services. In the period, instant messaging platform ayoba recorded 8.0 million monthly active users, an addition of 2.5 million since December 2020. It has now been integrated into 18 MTN markets.
Our goal is to reach 19 million monthly active users by the end of this year and 100 million by 2025, leveraging MTN’s existing base to scale up quickly and then grow as an OTT player in new markets.
The ayoba TV campaign is supported by radio, localised to each broadcast territory, as well as outdoor, print and on-ground activations. The message is simple – ayoba has everything you need.
“There is a need to go above the line to raise the awareness of ayoba. We strongly believe that our app will appeal to many in Africa and the Middle East and provides digital solutions to the day-to-day life of the consumer. In building the campaign we looked at what unites our African users, rather than what divides them. We had to show users that they can find everything they need in our all-in-one app. This approach has brought us a textured and innovative campaign, and we are very proud of it. We are excited to launch the campaign with the full support of MTN,” says Burak Akinci, Chief Executive Officer of Simfy (ayoba).
2021 has been a busy year so far for ayoba, which celebrated its second year of operations in May 2021.
ayoba is accelerating not only digital inclusion but also financial inclusion, with MTN MoMo integrated into ayoba in select markets including Ghana, Uganda, Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville. ayoba recently received the award for Best OTT Brand of the Year at the Marketing World Awards 2021. This adds to the 2020 win for ayoba at the Africa Digital Awards for Best Mobile Application in November 2020
MTN Group today announced the appointment of Burak Akinci as Chief Executive Officer of Simfy (ayoba), reporting to the MTN Group Chief Digital and Fintech Officer Serigne Dioum and responsible for the super app ayoba.
Effective 1 September 2021, Burak joins Africa’s leading mobile operator from Turkcell, where he was CEO of BiP, an instant messaging platform with millions of users across 192 countries. Burak, with over 20 years of experience in marketing, digital businesses and technologies, led the build-out of the BiP platform, which has more than 30 million users. In his new role, he will be based in Cape Town.
“We are thrilled that an executive of Burak’s calibre is joining us. His appointment accelerates our work to build the largest and most valuable platforms as we target greater digital and financial inclusion across the continent,” said Dioum.
Commenting on his appointment, Akinci said “I feel honoured and very excited to join MTN family and ayoba. I believe in the digital vision for Africa driven by MTN and I am confident that, with this great team, we will build the best communication platform and super app of Africa.” At the end of March 2021, MTN had 5.3 million monthly active ayoba users across 20 markets and a plan to grow this to 100 million in 2025. We aim to capture more than 10% of the gross merchandise value of the digital economy in our footprint as we move beyond the traditional telco-led Mobile Money (MoMo) offering with ayoba, which is an OTT (over the top) service that does not require users to be MTN subscribers. We are also targeting 100 million MoMo users by 2025, up from 46.6 million at end-March.
As people everywhere ramp up their usage of instant messaging, more and more are choosing ayoba. MTN Group is proud to partner with this unique instant messaging platform localised for the needs of consumers across Africa.
Launched in 2019 to improve access to affordable communications, ayoba is active in 17 MTN markets, and is also available to download onto Android smartphones in numerous other markets from Google Play and via the ayoba website www.ayoba.me as an over-the-top (OTT) offering.
ayoba is focused on protecting users’ privacy and security: it is not possible for messages in the app to be read by anyone else or to be shared with any third parties, including MTN. The app features peer-to-peer private messaging which is end-to-end encrypted; ayoba treats data with the utmost care and respect in line with its privacy policy.
All the content available on ayoba channels is curated and reviewed to ensure that its 100% family friendly and safe for younger users. A team of editors checks every post on ayoba content channels before it goes live across over 100 content channels and 120 games.
ayoba has also recently launched an in-app assistant, Aya, to guide new users on how to use the instant messaging app. Aya appears automatically in the app and can run a variety of interactive tutorials for key features within ayoba.
ayoba users can send and receive encrypted messages, share photos, videos, files, voice notes and even their location, and can also subscribe to live channels. Localised content is available through these channels that aim to entertain, educate and empower communities.
Since 2020, as COVID-19 spread across the world, ayoba’s daily lifeline data allocations on MTN’s networks in most markets allowed users free connections with family and provided them with zero-rated access to credible information through special COVID-19 channels.
10 Reasons To Use ayoba:
- FREE TO USE: ayoba is free to use. You need data to send messages and files to your contacts, but if you are on the MTN network, you will get free data every day to use the app.
- CHAT NOW: Instantly send and receive text and voice messages with any of your contacts.
- SECURE: End-to-end encryption means that messages in a conversation cannot be read by anyone else.
- QUICK CONNECT: Use your existing address book to quickly and easily connect you with your contacts.
- CHAT WITH EVERYONE: Send SMS text messages with anyone in your contact list, regardless of whether they’ve installed ayoba or not. If the contact to whom you send a message does not have the app, the message will be delivered by SMS. That contact can then respond by SMS and the response will come back into your app. This is a unique technology.
- GROUP CHAT: The more the merrier. Set up group chats to easily communicate with friends and family in a single chat.
- SHARING IS CARING: Share videos, images, audio, and other files with your contacts.
- LET’S MEET: Share your real-time location with your ayoba contacts.
- CHANNELS: Consume all content across various categories ranging from news, sports, music to entertainment and much more, all within the ayoba app. We have over 30 content channels live in Nigeria including Pulse for entertainment and the MTN YelloStar competition.
- LISTEN AND PLAY: We have a free music service in the app so you can listen to trending songs on our fantastic playlists. We also have games that you can play, such as BattleShip, Pinball, Solitaire and more. New content is added every day.
The app supports over 20 local languages spoken across MTN’s markets, including isiZulu, isiXhosa, Pidgin, Yoruba, Swahili, Hausa, French, Arabic, Portuguese, and English. At the end of June 2020, ayoba had two million active users.
In November 2020, ayoba was named the ‘Best Mobile App of the Year’ at the Africa Digital Awards 2020, acknowledging Africa’s first super-app, which offers users free instant messaging, mobile commerce and interactive entertainment.