London — As African mobile operators seek to reinvent themselves for a digital future, one key area for competition will be social platform services. MTN picked up the challenge in 2019 when it launched Ayoba. Russell Southwood spoke to Burak Akinci, CEO, Ayoba about how he sees the future growth of the platform.
I first covered MTN's Ayoba platform in 2019 several months after its launch and it had 700,000 active users and 1 million downloads. Three years later it is claiming 10.5 million actives and Akinci says that he has a target of 100 million users by the end of 2025: "We aim to grow 50% every year and we're pretty sure we'll get that target done."
He makes the point that every time the numbers increase it becomes easier to step up to an ever larger number: "When you get a sizeable amount of users, you're good enough to become known as a service provider."
Akinci was recruited by MTN from Turkcell where he ran a similar platform called bip launched in 2014: "I took over managing it in 2015 and it was spun off as a separate company." It has 30 million active users and attracts diaspora Turkish diaspra users from places as far apart as Pakistan and Germany: "You never know where OTT things will go. It's not just used by Turkcell's subscribers."
Mirroring bip, Ayoba has been set up as a separate company: "You need a start-up culture and mindset. But we're happy to have MTN behind us with its financial resources and its ability to zero rate services. We're running an agile operation and being in Cape Town is part of it."
The Ayoba platform is a 'super-app' with three elements: chat, voice and story sharing: "Users can connect with their loved ones and express themselves. It's also zero rated for MTN users." On the content side, it has music, media channels and the latest news: "There is high-quality specific content on topics you'd have an interest in. It's also free content."
But what's the business model?: "The content owners get reach and the monetization comes later. We foresee monetization will come from one of two routes: premium paid content, for which there is some demand and advertising, which we can sell." Also the payment transactions will be kept commission free during the growth phase: "In the end, when there are transactions and monetization, the amount charged will depend on the payment channel. We give the flexibility on this to the user."
He believes that micro-apps from innovators across the continent will be the platform's 'secret sauce': "We are becoming a platform that people know and the game will change. We don't know yet what innovators will bring us. We have connections with the start-up community and have been doing hackathons"
Ayoba has been rolled out across Sub-Saharan Africa: "The local opcos see value in it. The local (Ayoba) community creates value for them. We also have users from America but the focus will always be continental Africa.'
The most used part of the 'super app' is communications, the equivalent of WhatsApp. But music is very important content to Ayoba and is the second most used service in many countries: "In countries like Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville, messaging is leading but in South Africa music is a very strong second."
Games are also picking up very quickly: "We're investing on the games side and changed the user interface and increased the number of partnerships. As a result, usage has quadrupled in the last three months. The games are free. You create a community first and then think about monetizing."
So how does Ayoba relate to MTN's broader strategic ambitions?: "The MTN 2025 strategy is for the company to become a techco rather than a telco. Digital services and OTT are one of the pillars of that strategy and we are the executors of that strategy."
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