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| Arun Nagar, CEO and Managing Director for Spice VAS Africa |
Arun Nagar is the CEO and Managing Director for Spice VAS Africa. Today he shares his thoughts on Africa's mobile market.
Africa’s mobile market is not only the
fastest-growing in the world; it’s also the most challenging for operators and
service providers: low revenues per customer, high levels of churn and 96% of
the population on prepaid tariff plans.
By now, the market has evolved to the
point where operators cannot be content to just focus on new customers – that
is, people who have never owned a mobile phone before. Today, they need to
attract new customers, hold on to existing customers, and offer compelling
products and services.
Africa’s fastest-growing mobile services
company, Spice VAS Africa has a simple recipe for success: have deep local
understanding of various markets, tailor your product offering accordingly, and
then attract and retain customers through a combination of great content and
innovative value-added services.
Arun Nagar the CEO and Managing Director
of Spice believes the company’s focus on content will revolutionise the Africa mobile
industry for operators and mobile users alike. He says the African mobile
market is “rich with opportunity” for operators to lock in customer loyalty and
market share with great content, and the penetration rates Spice has achieved
in Africa in the past five years – up to 25% in some markets - talks to the
success of this approach.
Of course, when we talk about content in
Africa, we generally mean music. Today, Spice VAS Africa is one of the leading
VAS content owners in Africa in terms of the number of record labels signed
exclusively with the company, the overall number of artists and the different
ways it can deliver content to the end user.
Spice, one of the biggest VAS platform
providers on the continent, has already signed some of the continent’s top
music labels to bolster a compelling line-up of mobile offerings. What this
means is that African mobile users are starting to experience something of a
revolution in their mobile music experience, with functionalities that allow
users to create personalised playlists on any phone, effectively turning even
the cheapest phones into veritable iPods.
Spice has 43 services live in 19
networks across 12 countries in Africa and growing. In its newest market, South
Africa, Spice has only been operating for six months, but has already signed
deals with music labels like Universal, EMI, Soul Candi, Ghetto Ruff, Vonk
Musiek, Real Musiek and Select Musiek.
Across Africa, it boasts tie-ups with
some 560 artists, including Mi Casa, HHP, Rose Muhando and many more.
Spice is headquartered in Singapore, but
has grown its operations across Africa rapidly in the past two years on the
back of a product suite that includes voice and infotainment products and
managed services.
Spice is a proud sponsor of Africa Com, taking place in November - find out more, visit www.comworldseries.com/africa
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