Libon, the mobile messaging and voice over Internet Protocol app from Orange, is on its way to South Africa, CEO of Orange Horizons S\u00e9bastian Crozier\u00a0has confirmed.<\/p>\n
The app offers instant messaging, cheap international calling, and visual or transcribed voicemail.<\/p>\n
It is possible to download and use the application in\u00a0South Africa, but Orange said an official launch would bring a number of benefits to local users.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn countries where Orange is present, Libon is adapted to offer specific and exclusive offers for Orange customers in each country,\u201d said Fabian Voyer, vice president of data services at Orange Horizons.<\/p>\n
If Libon comes to South Africa, Voyer said it will leverage on the Orange group\u2019s assets. This is what the company is doing in countries like France, Spain, Romania, and Slovakia, he added.<\/p>\n
Before launching in South Africa, Orange first posed a few questions to Icasa and the Ministry of Telecommunications and Postal Services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf everything is okay we will be able to launch it. I\u2019m not sure all competitors have done the same, but we want to respect the local laws,\u201d said Crozier.<\/p>\n
One of Libon\u2019s competitors is WhatsApp, which the latest estimates rank as the most popular social platform in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Arguably one of the greatest strengths of WhatsApp is that it runs on a wide variety of mobile devices \u2013 including devices that aren\u2019t categorised as smartphones.<\/p>\n
Libon, on the other hand, has opted to focus on smartphones as well as a web client.<\/p>\n
Crozier said they expect to support Windows Phone devices in future, but not feature phones.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn less than two or three years, between 80\u201390% of the market is going to be smartphones,\u201d Crozier said.<\/p>\n
These won\u2019t all be expensive, high-end smartphones, he added, but they will be smartphones nonetheless.<\/p>\n
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