MTN will launch a new instant messaging platform, the group announced at it\u2019s financial results presentation for the year ended December 2018, on Wednesday (7 March).<\/p>\n
Group CEO Rob Shuter said the IM service would form part of the company\u2019s mobile money portfolio and aims to function as the \u201cWeChat of Africa\u201d, enabling mobile payments for the unbanked and underbanked.<\/p>\n
The company plans to launch the platform, its own music streaming service, and an improved mobile money offering.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have built our own instant messaging platform which has been in beta testing for months now,\u201d Shuter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will begin launching across our operational markets this year, starting with two West African markets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shuter told MyBroadband that the MTN messaging app would launch across the group\u2019s entire portfolio, including South Africa.<\/p>\n
The rollout of the application will begin in African markets as a pilot and expand to other markets like South Africa going forward.<\/p>\n
When it comes to taking on applications like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger in South Africa, Shuter said MTN\u2019s platform will offer communication channels which are not only reliant on data.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst and foremost, we are building in SMS integration into the messaging app. This is really important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The integration of SMS will allow data-enabled 3G customers to converse with non-data customers across a seamless messaging platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be an important differential between existing apps and the platform we are building, especially as the penetration of data customers increases in our market,\u201d Shuter said.<\/p>\n
MTN\u2019s messaging app is built from scratch by an in-house team and will offer localisation across MTN\u2019s operational markets. The app currently supports 54 languages, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother focus is the integration of MTN Mobile Money in the markets where this service is offered,\u201d Shuter said.<\/p>\n
He said the platform would be a messaging-centric app with an embedded payment mechanism, and it will also offer incentives for customers via the bundling of data promotions and services.<\/p>\n
Integrating this platform within the MTN messaging application would allow users to make payments to other Mobile Money customers easily, while also communicating with other users via data-reliant and SMS messaging.<\/p>\n
MTN Mobile Money will also expand to South Africa, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Sudan this year, Shuter added.<\/p>\n
There is currently no launch date for the MTN messaging app in South Africa, but Shuter said the application will begin rolling out this year.<\/p>\n