One of the positives of our continent is that it gives allowance for innovation, both disruptive and ground-breaking — the choice is that of the innovators. Following our first apps developed in Africa series, our focus today is SAYA – the cross-platform instant message application, developed and based in Ghana. It covers feature phones, an important niche which has so far been left out.
Overview
Saya works as a group application for feature phones that have access to the internet. It creates an option to Short Messaging Service (SMS), which is sent directly through the operator networks and is charged as such. Now, imagine if you have to be charged consistently for an hour-long chat or much longer; the price is certainly not something you would even want to think about. That is where Saya comes in.
Problem It Solves
With Saya, the cost of SMS could be cut down by a significant amount. It offers a much cheaper messaging service to its users, filling the gap for the large number of feature phone owners. It makes so much sense, as these people could really benefit from such low-cost solutions. Interestingly, it also doesn’t leave out the smart phone users as it plans to cater to the iOS and Android platforms sometime later. Saya’s service uses so little data that the price is well worth it when users calculate the monetary equivalent of the data used. One major advantage here is that the trends are now more in favor of data-based instant messaging platforms, as they try to replace the age-long SMS platforms.
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Unique Feature
I think Saya has got one over WhatsApp, as it goes beyond smart phones to cover the feature phone constituency, which is a major conglomerate of mobile phone users in Africa and Asia. This makes it stand out in its approach to offer instant messaging and SMS services. It is almost the perfect solution for markets such as these, which are still referred to as emerging. Currently it is based on Java, but it combines certain features such as those seen on the BlackBerry Messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook, plus location-based chat, Facebook chat, social media integration, and group chat across different feature phone platforms.
Value Proposition
Saya mobile is the brain-child of two young Ghanaian graduates; co-founded by Robert Lamptey (currently CEO) and Badu Boahen Amankwah (currently CTO) in 2011. Saya as a company prides itself in the development of mobile software and services for high-growth mobile markets. In unveiling its flagship product – the Saya mobile app, the C.E.O mentioned that: “the mobile app was created to leverage on existing mobile technology like SMS, to deliver a mobile messaging service which would be far cheaper than the current cost of SMS. Adding that, Saya is a thousand times cheaper than SMS, as it brings to mobile users a chat application, that will enable them stay in touch with their phone contacts, by sending unlimited messages, and images to them at a fraction of the cost of a single SMS.” Designed for all categories of mobile phones, Saya also makes it possible to chat with Facebook contacts, and join in location based chats. It thus proposes to add more fun to how we send our messages, with the added value of a cost-effective rate.
Potential Coverage
Saya may have Ghana as its base, but as proven by one of the app’s features – “suggest Saya to your friends” (which accesses user contacts and sends invites to them). This was said to have brought their numbers easily up to 400,000 while in trial. Subsequently, the initial 400,000 also generated another 8.7 million invites. Some of these invites extended to places like Syria. Again after trying their service with a few thousand users in Nigeria, Egypt, Indonesia and Ghana, with almost zero marketing, the results have been astounding, the equivalent of going viral. All of the latter tells how much potential lies in the works for the Saya mobile app. It has indeed found a problem to solve, and all of the niche can be its coverage ground.
Critique
Presently it is available cross-platform on feature phones only. Maybe it should have been made available on the smartphone platforms, almost as soon as it was available for the feature phones. It would have helped bridge a major barrier, so that both sides would have found a cheap and effective means of communicating without any hassles.
Conclusion
The major difference between Saya and WhatsApp is that they are trying more to support the lowest phones which have access to the internet. This market has got lots of space for development. And with the uniquely rich features bundled up in the mobile app, it has got the right appeal to take over the market, and to make as much profit, even while dishing out real value in the process.
SEE ALSO: 5 Lessons From Saya’s CEO, Robert Lamptey To Developers
The founders of Saya also seem to have figured out a way to deal with the backlash that could result from the big Telcos ganging up to crowd them out of the market. They are already finding ways in which they could partner and work together. In the long term also, the company intends to be able to make money from featured adverts on the app, as their business model approach is a free app supported by the ads.
If you would adopt the app Saya over WhatsApp or other equivalents, or you have opinions as to the mobile app catering to the larger percentage of feature phones, please share in comments below.
