MTN has announced that its instant messaging platform, Ayoba has reached 1 million monthly active users.
Ayoba is an advanced communications application localised for African and Middle East consumer need, under an independent Over the Top (OTT) brand with unique features for MTN customers.
The app supports many local languages spoken across the MTN markets including isiZulu, isiXhosa, Pidgin, Yoruba, Swahili, Hausa, French and English.
MTN, together with its partners, is driven to improve access to affordable communications to ensure that people in its markets can reap the social, economic and developmental dividends of being online.
Ayoba underscores this goal to bring more people into the digital world by providing them with affordable and simplified digital communication services.
Commenting, MTN Group President and CEO, Rob Shuter said, “We believe that our customers in Africa and the Middle East deserve a communication platform that expresses our unique voice, honours our rich identity through local languages, and addresses our customers’ specific needs and challenges by offering a data-included offering for MTN users, Mobile Money transfers (coming soon) and locally relevant content via channels.”
The platform which was launched earlier this year is now operational in 8 MTN markets, namely: Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo Brazzaville, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Afghanistan and South Africa.
Ayoba is also available across multiple markets on the Google Play Store and via the Ayoba website as an OTT offering.
As part of continuous efforts to enhance its offerings, Ayoba will be adding more features in the future.
“Ayoba is also working on building an open digital platform that will enable third party innovation. This will ensure that we offer a rich diversified experience on the platform, enabling us to deliver more value to our users, empower local developers and create local experiences that are optimised for local communities,” explains David Gilarranz, CEO MTN Digital.
