Kenya’s best cellular supplier, Safaricom, is teaming up with data assortment startup mSurvey to launch shopper pockets ― a web based platform the usage of cell and SMS to map Africa’s cash-based economic system.
A beta model of the product goes live in Kenya this month. Safaricom and mSurvey are trying out the app with doable shoppers and company companions, including McKinsey Consulting, mSurvey CEO Kenfield Griffith informed TechCrunch.
client pockets will likely be available on a subscription and license foundation as early as August 2017. “we’re refining the product with a bunch of potential shoppers to design the pricing version,” mentioned Griffith. “we are scaling it along Kenya, but additionally having a look beyond as a result of we’re not just solving a Kenyan drawback, we are fixing an African problem.”
Griffith used to be referring to the problem many trade face of quantifying shopper spending habits and trends on the continent, where more than 50 p.c of commercial activity and employment happens in casual sectors, consistent with the African building bank.
based in Kenya and working due to the fact that 2012, mSurvey harnesses Africa’s shift to digital to higher monitor shopper preferences. The startup employs mobile phone-primarily based surveys to gather data on more than a few themes and market segments. mSurvey has received seed and undertaking funds from backers including pass culture Ventures and Alpha Angels. It also counts Safaricom’s Spark challenge Fund as an investor.
the consumer pockets partnership pairs mSurvey’s knowledge research operate with Safaricom’s inner instruments and distribution network. Safaricom is Kenya’s greatest telco, with 25 million (sixty five %) of the country’s cell subscribers.
along with its M-Pesa cellular money product ― used by 16.6 million Kenyans thru a one hundred,744-agent community ― the company has been adding consumer and small industry-based totally products to its mobile network. These embody digital television, the M-Kopa sunlight-powered lighting kit, Lipa-Na bill pay carrier and Little experience-hail app, which is now going head to head with Uber.
For the consumer wallet beta test, mSurvey will use day-to-day SMS and textual content messages to trace the money-primarily based spending of a 1,000-person sample drawn from Safaricom cellular subscribers. this will likely feed into the patron wallet database monitoring preferences and expenses on items reminiscent of food, transport, training and housing.
the shopper pockets launch follows a development of client research in Africa turning into a formalized sector. A decade of boom and reform in the various continent’s core economies, together with growth in retail sectors, has pushed demand for more particular consumer knowledge.
a number of global shopper-centered companies have expanded in Africa during the last decade, from Wal-Mart in 2011 to Netflix and e-Bay in 2016.
large international analysis companies akin to Nielsen and Euromonitor were upping their African shopper analysis choices. An American firm, GeoPoll, has also built out a digital survey provider and database in 20 African international locations.
mSurvey elevated its core client analysis platform into South Africa in 2016 and is taking a look at transferring into nations comparable to Zambia, Ghana and Nigeria, in step with Griffith. although neither would name nations, both mSurvey and Safaricom plan to take the new shopper wallet beyond take a look at market Kenya to other international locations on the continent.
“To spend money on Africa, it’s important to have in mind its shoppers,” stated Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore, on the value of the new platform to businesses having a look to faucet the continent’s money-based totally economic system.
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mobile – TechCrunch
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