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connectivity-telecomsJanuary 20248 min read

Mobilise Your Brand

Explains how MVNE helps brands combine their core business with telco to create unique customer value propositions. Showcases DSTV Internet as a success story and traces the history of mobile commerce innovation in Africa, from the first mobile transaction in 2000 to modern app-driven insurance models.

YA

Yaron Assabi

Group Founder & CEO

Mobilise Your Brand

Photo by MVNE on Pexels

Mobilise Your Brand

Mobilise your brand is what we do at MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enabler) when we help brands combine their core business with Telco to design a unique customer value proposition.

MVNE is the enabler for DSTV Internet, which is a huge success because it solves the need to combine content and connectivity in Africa. For consumers, the cost of data is the biggest part of the spend when streaming entertainment. Therefore, a cost-effective communications solution is critical to make the DSTV content more accessible anywhere, anytime, on any device.

For example, if you are watching 10 movies a month, you will require around 5GB of data which is equivalent to around R500 in South Africa, whereas the subscription fee for the content is only R79 for 3 months or R26.33 per month, so just over 5% of total wallet share required to watch those 10 movies a month is actually for content. Since the launch of DSTV Internet, the uptake has been phenomenal, and we believe it has the potential to be one of the biggest MVNOs in Africa.

Mobile: Africa's Largest Platform

Did you know that 50% of Africans have mobile phones? This means that mobile technology is the largest platform in Africa and can access a wide range of income groups. AppsAfrica reports mobile app downloads have surpassed 98 billion, a sizeable market growing very fast.

According to Hootsuite, South Africans are higher than the global average, spending more than 10 hours a day on the internet, connecting via mobile devices. The average consumer checks their phone 150 times daily, more than 10 times per hour. 87% of millennials admit their smartphone is always with them.

Pioneers of Mobile Commerce

We are mobile natives as we pioneered mobile commerce in March 2000 when we launched the first mobile commerce transaction in the world on mywap.digitalmall.com. It was ground-breaking, and we evolved our solution to launch the first mobile ticketing for Ster Kinekor in 2001 as part of an omni-channel commerce solution.

In 2004, we launched the first and only gambling board-approved mobile betting application for Phumelela for Horse Racing and Soccer, winning the best B2C m-commerce application at Vodacom Mobile Connect 2004. In the same year, we launched the first financial mobile application for TransUnion, which won the best enterprise solution award.

We created the first e-book on mobile, "The car dealer guide," which was the bible of the industry. This unique app, called 1 Check, won several additional awards over the years, including MTN App of the year and delivered unbelievable ROI as a premium subscription service. The key success factor is using the camera to shorten the customer journey into one click. Simplicity is the key to adoption.

App-Driven Business Innovation

Today, we continue to see a move towards app-driven businesses such as MiWay Blink. MiWay saw an opportunity to bring a fresh, innovative approach to car insurance that uses smart tech in the background. The underlying technology behind the behaviours-based insurance is Zendrive mobile SDK, which provides AI and Machine Learning algorithms trained by over 320 billion Kms of data.

With mobile, it's easier for your customers to help themselves, and that is the Holy Grail of running a successful mobile-first brand: lowering the cost to serve and getting better customer insight.

Mobile Marketing: The Most Formidable Channel

Hootsuite discovered that 92.1% of internet users aged between 16-64 use their mobile device to access the internet. Mobile is by far the most personal channel. Almost 60% of internet users across the globe bought something online every single week.

Getting your brand on the customer's mobile phone is almost like getting them to tattoo it on their arm. The industry and brands now recognise that a large portion of the marketing budget (25-50%) should be spent on mobile. We forecast that in Africa, most marketing spend will migrate to mobile over the next few years.

The paradigm shift with mobile marketing has been phenomenal. When you add location-based marketing, it is by far the most targeted and effective channel. You can build campaigns triggered by user actions and delivered in real-time, track every event your customers take, and guide them through personalised in-app messaging and recommendations.

Mobile is the most formidable channel for marketing in Africa. Make the most of it and Mobilise your Brand. #DoingSomethingGreat