MTN Group announced the launch of an instant messaging (IM) service akin to China’s “WeChat” and Facebook’s “WhatsApp”. This was made known by their CEO, Rob Shuter on Thursday.
“We’ve built an instant-messaging platform that will be integrated with mobile money to form the first step of what we call the ‘African WeChat’”, Shuter said.
The IM platform ‘Africa WeChat’ forms part of the group’s mobile money initiatives. China’s WeChat app, a prized asset of Naspers associate— Tencent, is a messaging, social media and payments app with more than 1-billion active users.
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The app will be launched in MTN markets in West Africa first as part of a “beta-testing” phase. The plan is to introduce it to all the countries in which it operates, including South Africa. A key difference will be the ability for users to exchange messages who don’t have a data plan through inter-operability with SMS.
“We are successful (with mobile money) when we compete with cash,” Shuter said on a call with journalists on Thursday morning to unpack MTN’s annual results for the year ended 31 December 2018. “We are extending our Bright strategy to build MTN into a digital operator with a major focus on the fintech, digital, enterprise and wholesale business areas,” Shuter said in a statement alongside the results.
He also said that MTN would launch its music streaming service across its portfolio of 21 markets by July. “Key focus areas for 2019 are the launch of our own music streaming and instant messaging applications and extending MTN mobile money from 14 to 18 countries through launches in South Africa, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Sudan.”
The group plans to focus on the unbanked and under-banked segment of the population instead of competing with banks by launching a full digital banking platform.