Africa leads the chat commerce drive
Chat commerce and chat banking are revolutionising the way African companies engage and serve their customers.
The next generation of commerce enables companies to meet and engage with their clients on platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger without having to invest in new architecture.
“This technology has proved to be the best way to overcome infrastructure and socioeconomic challenges, and local businesses are quickly embracing the opportunity,” says Clickatell CEO Pieter de Villiers.
In view of the comparatively low Internet penetration in Africa, transacting over a chat platform is markedly easier for a population that often has limited data, with the downloading and use of applications becoming a hard sell for many companies.
While application penetration is only 18% in Africa, chat channels like WhatsApp, however, can extend penetration to 64%, which is more than a 300% improvement in reach, compared with traditional applications.
“Chat commerce is the biggest opportunity for CIOs and chief marketing officers. Serving clients on the digital platform really matters and chat commerce allows the effort to be supersized without having to lay down any new architecture,” he continues.
While China remains the undisputed leader in chat commerce, Africa and South-East Asia vie for second place.
African banks, however, have leapt at the chance to quickly and easily reach their customers, realising that brands gain and lose market share based on their ability to serve customers.
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