SOUTH AFRICAN MOBILE ENABLEMENT GIANT
TARGETS AFRICAN CELLPHONE BANKING AND
TRANSACTIONAL SERVICES BUSINESS
A
South African mobile enablement giant has become one of the
first and biggest service providers in Africa covering over 1000
networks in more than 220 territories and countries. What was
once a local South African start-up company is now growing
its business by targeting the development of Africa’s fast-growing mobile
banking and financial services sector.
Clickatell has extensive reach into the African mobile
communications market, which enables it to deliver financial transactions
alongside its traditional messaging business. They already operate in
Nigeria and Rwanda, with Kenya and Ghana to follow shortly.
They differentiate themselves by enabling banks to reach and transact
with their clients securely through cost-effective channels, thus reducing
the bank’s cost to serve. Simultaneously, they can also drive the bank’s
cost to serve down further by building additional revenue streams into
their offerings, such as the convenience of selling prepaid airtime and
other value-added services.
Clickatell sees the mobile market as the number one area for growth in
the banking and retail sectors, especially in Africa where not everyone
has access to a computer or to a local bank branch.
The growth of mobile networks across Africa has been exponential.
A recent study showed that by 2015 more people in Africa will have
access to a mobile network than will have electricity in their homes.
An independent study by ABI Research expects mobile phone subscriber
penetration levels to pass 80% in the first quarter of 2013, up from 76.4%
or 821 million subscribers in the last quarter of 2012.
‘Clickatell is primarily a mobile enablement company. It helps businesses
connect, interact and transact with their customers on mobile devices. We
can deliver our services reliably, efficiently and over a wide geographic
footprint. That’s our competitive advantage,’ says Pieter De Villiers CEO
and founder of Clickatell.
Clickatell is already in partnership with several banking and financial
institutions where they deliver their preferred mobile solution. They
work with these banks to address their channel cost to serve needs, while
functioning as a preferred mobile enabler. The company has direct access
to all the major mobile networks in South Africa and the majority of
networks across the continent.
Clickatell’s approach is unique in that their channels do not replace
each other but rather complement each other. In one case study, which
demonstrates their ability, they can deliver 98.9% of their transaction
services and messages in less than a second.
Pieter can be proud of what the company has achieved since he cofounded it in South Africa with three others, including his brother
Casper, in 2000. Initially they wanted to start their own dot-com business
to inform customers by SMS about last-minute discounted airfare deals.
In their search for a mechanism that would enable them to do this they
spotted a gap in the market. Clickatell was launched to provide an
interface between the internet and telecommunications services.
With an initial startup capital of R180 000 in Cape Town, they grew via
acquisition and venture capital backing from Sequoia Capital (one of
the early investors in Apple and Google amongst others) to become an
international mobile enablement company, head quartered in Redwood
City, California.
Clickatell has high hopes for its push into Africa, where it already
generates about half its revenues. It hopes to increase revenues beyond
$100 million in the next three years and is ramping up its mobile
enablement services to be the driving force behind this.
‘We are very excited about the prospects for growth in Africa,’ says
Pieter. ‘The African continent presents a won