EskomSePush hurt by load-shedding reprieve

Load-shedding app EskomSePush has seen its active user base plummet from more than 3.2 million to 300,000 since the current load-shedding break started.

Speaking to 702, EskomSePush co-founder Dan Southwood-Wells said his team is using the platform to cover outages not related to load-shedding, including general power and water outages.

“As any other South African, we celebrate the load-shedding improvement, and we’re chuffed that the situation appears to be improving,” he said.

“But yes, we’re fighting to stay relevant and we’re using our experience over the last nine years to push you information that we can get from other sources.”

Southwood-Wells said EskomSePush will vet the information and make sure it’s trusted before pushing it to South Africans so that they can plan around any outages.

He said this includes water and power outages and other interesting things happening nearby.

“We are still known as a load-shedding app. However, in the bigger metros like Cape Town, Johannesburg, and eThekwini, we’re using a lot of municipal data to give that information out,” said Southwood-Wells. “We’ve gone from an active user base of 3.2 million to about 300,000.”

At the time, Eskom’s load-shedding had been suspended for 37 consecutive days. The suspension has remained, with South Africa currently on a 47-day streak of no rotational power cuts.

However, he noted that users return to the app as EskomSePush expands its coverage.

The platform’s user base decline is significant, considering that it recorded a massive increase in users in 2023.

In November 2023, EskomSePush co-founder Hermann Maritz told MyBroadband that the app had cracked 9 million installs on Android devices and 3 million installs via the Apple App Store.

He added that EskomSePush had accumulated 360,000 downloads through the Huawei AppGallery.

The 12.36 million downloads by November 2023 were more than double the number the app had in October 2022.

This highest number of downloads in a single day happened on 12 September 2023, when EskomSePush recorded 3.9 million unique users.

However, it should be noted that 2023 was South Africa’s worst year of load-shedding to date, and EskomSePush was commonly used by South Africans to plan their days and weeks.

The load-shedding app with a fun side

Through the years, the EskomSePush team has added several helpful features, including its load-shedding timelines, calendar integration, home screen and lock screen widgets, expanded area coverage, area recommendations, and AskMyStreet.

It has also added some light-hearted features and even changed its name following a controversial exchange between Springbok hooker Bongi Mbonambi and England loose forward Tom Curry during the semi-final of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

One such light-hearted feature was EskomSePush’s addition of its take on the classic mobile game Snake within its app. Users can access the game by double-tapping the EskomSePush logo.

“It’s our little way of helping you pass the time when the lights go out,” EskomSePush said.

The brief name change came following the Springbok victory over England in the 2023 Rugby World Cup semi-final and allegations of racism against Mbonambi from England’s Curry.

British media caught onto an on-field complaint by Curry that was picked up by the referee’s microphone.

“Sir! Sir! If their hooker calls me a white c***, what do I do?” Curry said. “Nothing, please. I’ll be on it,” referee Ben O’Keeffe stated.

South Africans quickly pointed out that the swearword in question sounds precisely like the Afrikaans word for “side”, spelt “kant”.

Curry may also have heard the Afrikaans word “wyd” (wide) as “white”.

The media uproar resulted in an investigation from World Rugby, which eventually dismissed the allegations against Mbonambi.

Following Eskom’s announcement that it will keep power cuts suspended for the weekend, the app sent out a notification under the name “EskomSeKant”.