  Etisalat has joined forces with Mahindra Comviva to enable millions of mobile users owning basic mobile phones across Africa and Asia to join the online community using a new low-cost USSD messaging service from Etisalat.
This will provide access to email, social networking and messaging services, to basic mobile devices and feature phones at very affordable prices.
The partnership provides Etisalat’s 139 million subscribers across Middle East, Africa and Asia with consumer email, instant messaging, social networking, phone book backup services as well as popular news/web feeds and other relevant applications over their mobile phone. They can do this either through downloading an application or via USSD, SMS or MMS messages which eliminates the users' dependence on smartphones. This effectively provides access to contemporary web services to every mobile handset.
The platform will be deployed in a single location within the UAE, while the services will be made available to all the 15 affiliates of Etisalat. The first Etisalat market to deploy the new messaging solution is Etisalat Nigeria, whose 15 million subscribers will soon be able to enjoy the benefit of advanced communications on any handset.
Steven Evans, CEO Etisalat Nigeria said, “Nigeria has a vast population of young people a majority of which are basic-phone holders with no or minimum data capabilities. As we continue to attract new customers to our network across various segments, it is our desire that we are able to address their needs to enjoy emailing, instant messaging, and social networking amongst other services no matter the type of handset they are using.”.
Commenting on the partnership, Essa Al Haddad, Chief Executive Officer, Africa at the Etisalat Group said, “With the ubiquity of Internet, internet-enabled services such as social networking, email and instant messaging have gained tremendous popularity. However, with smartphone adoption still low in many countries and multiple clients for each service, the user experiences get very complicated. These mar the adoption of such web services on mobile handsets. Comviva has always been a trusted partner for Etisalat and with this new engagement, we will bring such and other more richer and interactive web services for our subscribers without any such limitations.”
Manoranjan Mohapatra, CEO, Mahindra Comviva, added, “We are excited to extend our partnership with Etisalat Group by offering these exciting web services for all its subscribers across 15 affiliates. These Cloud-based offerings will significantly accelerate time to market for Etisalat, stably. This partnership also reflects our commitment to create and deploy innovative and revenue-enhancing solutions that will delight subscribers and thus help Etisalat build a sustainable competitive advantage in their markets.”
As per the recent report from Nielsen, consumers’ time spent with social media on mobile apps and the mobile web has increased 63 percent in 2012, compared to the same period last year. Juniper Research forecasts that the number of mobile IM (Instant Messaging) users will exceed 1.3 billion by 2016.
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