WeChat says buhbye to Nigerian market, Kenya mobile penetration rises, Snapchat on Windows? And Google+ celebrates 5th year birthday.
Mobile text and voice messaging service, WeChat, has reportedly left the Nigerian market. Developed by Tencent in China, the service is being managed in Africa by Naspers. They made a debut into the market sometime in 2013 giving away tons of cash to new users (not sustainable eh?) Even though there is no official word from WeChat or Naspers on the development, it’s been said that the company no longer has staff in Nigeria suggesting that the company would be managed from South Africa just like PriceCheck.com.ng and few other Naspers ventures.
(Kenya is singing a completely different tune as the mp in that country rose to 38.3 million subscriptions in the 1st quarter of this year from 37.7 million the previous quarter equaling an increase of 3.5 million. Subsequently, mobile penetration grew by 1.5 percentage points during the period under review to stand at 89.2% up from 87.7% recorded previously. Safaricom gained 0.9% market share, Airtel, on the other hand, lost 1.7% market share while Orange recorded a 0.1% increase in market share, Equitel gained 0.7% market share and a new operator, Sema Mobile, acquired an operating license and managed to net 158 subscribers.
June 28th was Google plus’ 5th birthday! The app was launched in 2011 and to celebrate this year, they took to twitter (@googleplus) and shared a post which read “Today is Google+’s 5th year anniversary! Thank you for all you’ve done on the platform. #Gplus5.” A reply to that tweet contained some tough love for a birthday celebration (@lazysod). Thank you to our teeming followers on G+ btw!
If we are to go by the conversation between twitter user @GalnRodolfo… And Spanish twitter handle @LumiaSoporte, then Snapchat just might be coming to your windows phone soon. From the translation, the customer asked why Snapchat was not available in the Windows Store. The Lumia Twitter account replied him and assured that they are working with their “friends at Snapchat” to bring it as soon as possible.
This July, students from OAU will be representing Nigeria as ‘Team Humane’ in the Microsoft Imagine cup competition in Seattle after emerging national champions in the competitions world citizenship category for Nigeria. They developed a solution that allows for visually impaired people to use and enjoy apps on their smatphones; a product called the Humane handle. Read up more by searching “Team Humane” on the site.
