MTN launching messenger service to take on WhatsApp

Bradley Prior

Bradley Prior

MyBroadband Journalist
Staff member
Super Moderator
Joined
Oct 16, 2018
Messages
4,920
Reaction score
1,545
MTN launching messenger service to take on WhatsApp

Speaking at MTN’s financial results presentation for the year ended 31 December 2018, Group CEO Rob Shuter announced that the mobile operator would launch a new instant messaging platform.

Shuter said the IM service would form part of the company’s mobile money portfolio and aims to function as the “WeChat of Africa”, enabling mobile payments for the unbanked and underbanked.
 
MTN going into banking again? Couple that with IM... eish :D
 
Maybe open up sms to be data based. We'll go back to sending SMS instead of WhatsApp without thinking about it
 
MTN Group CEO Rob Shuter said:
First and foremost, we are building in SMS integration into the messaging app. This is really important.

The integration of SMS will allow data-enabled 3G customers to converse with non-data customers across a seamless messaging platform.
Click to expand...

I can see how this will play out.
  1. This app will come pre-installed on phones sold via MTN contracts. A user will open it up to use and see that, "Wow, all my contacts are in this app, even more than on WhatsApp!"
  2. Meanwhile, you are conversing with the bulk of those contacts via sms, and importantly, at sms rates.
  3. MTN laughs all the way to the bank.

Hey, ICASA have taken away their lifeline (OOB shock bills), so they have to think of something new.
 
Oh, so that explains why they have been stonewalling RSC rollout on its network!! This is just an excuse to sell more SMSes and shoehorn another crappy banking service in to-boot. If they just enabled RCS locally, like they told the GSMA consortium they were going to do, we would have a perfect messaging app in Google Messenger. Time to migrate my number to another network that supports progress over pure profits? Oh wait, there isn't one.
 
CaffeineOverdrive said:
Oh, so that explains why they have been stonewalling RSC rollout on its network!! This is just an excuse to sell more SMSes and shoehorn another crappy banking service in to-boot. If they just enabled RCS locally, like they told the GSMA consortium they were going to do, we would have a perfect messaging app in Google Messenger. Time to migrate my number to another network that supports progress over pure profits? Oh wait, there isn't one.
Click to expand...
Not a fun of RCS. A reason is that it moves spying function from local networks to the one centralised giant who will have access to everything.
 
Not so sure about this innovation. Definitely not ground breaking. They will really need a specific service offering in this segment to win. I'm more interested in the person internally in MTN which pitched this idea. Make that individual chief sales officer.
 
Does it also come with a social app taking on Facebook?

Click, click, click, click, click......
 
The article says its one ground-breaking feature is incorporating sms messages into a messenger app... But that functionality has been available in FB Messenger app for years now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter