MTN has announced that its
super-app Ayoba has recently achieved a significant milestone reaching 35
million monthly active users across the African continent in December 2023.
The growth, it noted in a
statement, is attributed to the heightened retention rates and organic adoption,
fuelled by an enhanced user experience in the communication suite and a robust
content offering that includes music, channels, games, and services. The
expansion has been further propelled by the inclusion of users from new territories
such as Kenya, Egypt, Mali, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Botswana.
Selorm Adadevoh, MTN Group Chief Commercial Officer
shares, “Empowering connections, fostering
innovation, and charting the course for a digital future, ayoba is more than an
app – it’s a transformative journey. Like the continent itself, ayoba has been
resilient, dynamic, and forward-thinking. As we reflect on the milestones of
2023, it’s clear that our dedication to innovation and user-centricity has
propelled ayoba to new heights. With gratitude for the past and a vision for
the future, we embarked on 2024 with a steadfast commitment to continuing to
evolve ayoba delivering enriched experiences for its growing user base in
Africa. Our focus remains unwavering on empowering communities, driving
innovation, and building a sustainable ecosystem for long-term growth, ayoba is
not just an app; it’s a testament to the power of connectivity.“
ayoba saw strong growth in 2023 in many areas of the
service. Usage of Music continued to increase via ayoba’s popular playlist
service* in collaboration with Boomplay, which ended the year in excess of 600
million streams. Amongst many other growth drivers were improvements in
the messaging vertical and popularity of the new ‘Explore’ landing page.
Looking ahead to 2024, Burak Akinci, ayoba’s CEO,
expresses optimism, saying “We are very
proud of our achievements in 2023, and we have a lot to look forward to in the
coming year. We begin the year
with a strong offering for Football fans including multiple daily news updates,
games, themed playlists to name a few. As we move into the year, our
product and content teams have many updates coming across Messaging and Groups,
User Stories, Music, Games and
more. Our focus in 2024 will extend to the B2B front, introducing features to
benefit our partners and leverage our growing ecosystem and traffic.“
In 2023, ayoba successfully launched content marketing
attracting partnerships with top brands such as Cadbury’s, Chappies. The year
ahead will see a heightened focus on expanding partnerships with known brands,
as new Ad Sales options are introduced to capitalise on the growing user base
and engagement.
On the content front, ayoba has secured new high-profile
partners, from international NGOs to the localised Dycoco offering, adding more
French comedy to the highly popular Adamant Media series on the platform. In
plans for 2024, includes the introduction of more podcasts, playlists,
education, sports news, lifestyle updates and uplifting with a focus on
short-form video.
ayoba is set to launch an updated range of services,
including a communications API, new payment partners and improvements to its
partner portal. The newly launched ‘Discover’ Page in the Services vertical
offers new traffic drivers for partners, as well as a curated services
offering.
Messaging has always been a core focus for ayoba. Following
on the successful re-engineering of the messaging module in 2023 which included
a design and features refresh; ayoba will turn its attention to commercial
features in 2024. This includes the introduction of business accounts
with related support and a suite of business-oriented features.
By: Nana Appiah Acquaye
