Africa’s super app ayoba today announced the achievement of a significant milestone – surpassing the 25 million monthly active users’ mark as we celebrate our fourth anniversary.
This is up from 20 million monthly active users in December 2022. The platform is available globally but has a strong a focus on the African continent. Among key territories are Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda and The Republic of Congo.
“25 million is a significant milestone to pass on our fourth birthday,” says CEO Burak Akinci. “Our journey has been transformative, and the positive response from our users fuels our drive for innovation. Our users are at the heart of our progress, and we are grateful for their support.”
So far in 2023, ayoba has focused on enhancing communication and content features. These have been well received, with a 35% increase in messages, and a 16% increase in both stories and VoIP calls. Users have viewed 88 million cards across all channels, in topics such as entertainment, education, food, fashion and more.
“The first four months of 2023 was a period of significant growth and development for ayoba. We have improved our socialisation and messaging functionalities, enhanced our microapp experience and added many more features,” Akinci says.
The introduction of the new ‘explore’ landing page marks a significant advance for the ayoba’s Android version. This page, currently in pilot phase, will be rolled out to all key territories in the future. It brings a simplified design for easy navigation through ayoba’s curated high-quality content and highlights our themes to our users.
The microapp’s vertical has also seen significant evolution in Q1 at ayoba, as a direct shortcut to the vertical has been added on the bottom navigation bar. This section, referred to as an evolving ‘ecosystem for small African business’ – and some larger ones – allows service providers easy access to the existing ayoba user base with minimal effort. The most popular microapps currently are ‘live scores’ (allowing users to get the latest sports scores), ‘ayoba gifting’, ‘video play apps’, sports, and shopping.
Born out of a partnership with MTN, ayoba is available on all networks. In certain participating territories, users on ayoba receive complimentary daily data, amplifying its value proposition*. Ayoba’s growth trajectory has it on track to achieve 100 million monthly active users by 2025 in line with MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy.
About ayoba
10 REASONS TO USE AYOBA:
1. FREE TO USE: Ayoba is free to use, and this includes all our amazing features. You need data to get onto the internet, but if you are on the MTN network, you will get free data every day to use the app.
2. CHAT AND CALL NOW: Instant text and voice messaging, voice notes, and voice and video calls with any of your contacts. Note that voice and video calls will consume a user’s data.
3. SECURE: End-to-end encryption means that messages in a conversation cannot be read by anyone else.
4. FIND YOUR FRIENDS: Use your existing address book to quickly and easily connect with your contacts.
5. CHAT WITH EVERYONE: Send SMS text messages to anyone in your contact list, regardless of whether they have installed ayoba or not. If your friend does not have the app, the message will be delivered by SMS, and their SMS response will be delivered to your app. This is a unique technology.
6. GROUP CHAT: The more the merrier! Set up group chats to easily communicate with friends and family in a single chat.
7. SHARING IS CARING: Share videos, images, audio, and other files with your contacts.
8. LET’S MEET: Share your real-time location with your ayoba contacts.
9. CHANNELS: Free access to a variety of Africa-centric content, all within the ayoba app. From news, sports, fashion, music, education to entertainment – watch the Black Star channel for a taste of Ghana, Scrolla Africa in IsiZulu, Yoruba & Hausa, Pulse Channels for Nigerian and Ghanaian business news coverage, current affairs, entertainment and much more.
10. LISTEN AND PLAY: Our free music service allows users to listen to trending local and international songs in our fantastic playlists. We have games that you can play as well – Subway Surfers, CR7 Strike, Car Rush Spore Hunter, BattleShip, Pinball, Solitaire and more. New content is added every day.
Since its launch in May 2019, ayoba has reached millions of users, with a current active user base of 25 million monthly active users. It offers users free access to an ecosystem of digital and rich media services through channels, microapps and payment solutions, embedded within an African super-app.
Ayoba is highly localised and tailored for African consumer needs, supporting 22 relevant languages. Users can send and receive encrypted messages, share photos, videos, files, and voice notes and can also subscribe to live channels. Family-friendly localised content is available through curated channels aimed at entertaining, educating and empowering communities. There are also a range of games. ayoba is available for Android users on the Google Playstore, Apple Store, PalmStore (Transsion), Huawei and BeMobi stores as well as the ayoba website (ayoba.me).
