BlackBerry wants a pie of the mobile payment space in Africa and that is why the company has plans to roll out its BBM mobile payments solution in Africa. The company announced this a few days ago through a blog post on its website.
BBM mobile payments will first roll out in Nigeria then to South Africa. This expansion in Nigeria and South Africa has been influenced by the number of new users who install BBM every month. The company revealed that it sees over half a million BBM installs every month from these two countries. This adoption is allowing “a network effects [to] take root in several markets across the continent.”
With such numbers, BlackBerry say that the two countries represent two of its biggest global opportunities. The company went ahead to day, “both are seen as developing economies, they are some of our top revenue-generating markets.” BBM mobile payments are already live in Indonesia which still has loyal BlackBerry fans.
“We’re excited to announce we’ll be expanding our mobile payment initiatives into Africa, commencing in Nigeria,” Matthew Talbot, BlackBerry’s senior VP for emerging solutions, wrote in a blog posting. “BlackBerry has partnered with Interswitch Ltd, Nigeria’s largest payment processor, to enable any Nigerian to transfer money or airtime within BBM, as simply as they transfer photos or files.”
BlackBerry has not revealed if it will be expanding its service to other African markets. I highly doubt the company will do so because its presence in these other markets is still small to make business sense to introduce BBM mobile payments.