InTarget serves 2.1 million ads a month

InTarget has cemented its position in the African and Middle Eastern mobile advertising market by exceeding the two billion monthly mobile ads mark.

The company says it is now Africa’s first multi-country mobile advertising platform, with six MNO deals, and another five arriving in 12 months.

InTarget says its solutions are non-intrusive and can be added to notifications such as end-of-call, balance checks, recharge and ‘Please Call Me’.

The firm’s CEO, Lazarus Muchenje, said: ”To embed mobile advertising systems in one MNO is challenging. To do so with six MNOs, with plans to add another five by the end of 2017, is almost superhuman, but we’ll do it.”

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Yearly sales up 17.2 per cent at CLIQ Digital

Mobile ad firm CLIQ Digital increased revenue from 55.7m euros in 2015 to 65.3m euros in 2016.

The company improved sales in the European market in 2016, and said the share of the European market in total revenues was 82 per cent in 2016, compared to 69 per cent in the previous year.

CLIQ said emojis have driven some of its growth. It offers CLIQMOJI apps on iOS and Android as turnkey full-service solutions for their brands. The apps contain hundreds of unique brand-specific Emojis that can be shared over chat apps and social media.

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Wirecard takes Alipay payments to Greece

Chinese tourists are about to get yet another place to pay with Alipay when they are in Europe.

Wirecard is now working with National Bank of Greece to integrate Alipay into the technical infrastructure of Greece’s largest bank as a new payment method. It means Greek merchants will be able to offer Alipay at the point of sale for Chinese customers.

Nelly Tzakou-Lambropoulou, General Manager of Retail Banking at National Bank of Greece, said: “We are proud that we are in a position to allow merchants to offer a payment method trusted by Chinese customers. This has all been made possible by Wirecard’s exclusive technical support and professionalism.”

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Applause to provide testing and feedback for Upstream

Mobile commerce firm Upstream will work with Applause’s community of 250,000 software testers to ensure the quality of its services.

Upstream says it needs to test in real-world conditions, not in a lab environment. And that’s why it turned to Applause, which has local testers throughout South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Massimo del Vecchio, CTO for Upstream, said: “Applause has sped up the process of reviewing and identifying issues for us. The end result is a higher quality experience that helps our mobile operator partners deliver even more value to consumers in high-growth markets.”

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Syniverse and QiO team up on secure comms for industry

Enterprises can ensure confidential real-time connectivity thanks to a new cloud platform from Syniverse and QiO.

The two companies have agreed to combine their offerings. Syniverse provides messaging and other comms to over 200 countries, while UK-based QiO offer its NAUTILIAN platform to clients in heavy industry and manufacturing.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Syniverse to bring about this one-of-a-kind solution to our customers,” said Baz Khuti, CEO, QiO. “Industrials need real-time, secure connectivity to their assets, regardless of the location.”

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Bango enables charge to bill for Google Play in Bahrain

VIVA Bahrain customers can now buy their Android apps direct from the phone bill.

DCB specialist Bango has applied its Bango Boost post-launch technology to the system, so VIVA customers can have an effortless charge to bill payment experience.

It also means VIVA gets access to industry-wide comparative analysis and peer benchmarking. This helps the telco tweaks the platform to eliminate payment friction and actively increase the number of paying customers in app stores.

Bango CEO Ray Anderson said: “Bango tools and technologies streamline the upgrade process, ensuring no service disruption during migration so there are no failed payments or lost users. We will now apply our technology to this route to grow the business for VIVA Bahrain.”

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Nazara Games lands new cricket licence deal

Nazara Games will makes games based on one of India’s biggest IPL cricket teams, Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The game, RCB Star Cricket, will feature some of the game’s biggest stars including Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers.

“Our aim is to create the largest cricketing community on second screen. RCB will work exclusively with Nazara Games as part of a three-year partnership,”Manish Agarwal, CEO, Nazara Games told BusinessLine.

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Infobip opens office in Italy

A new corporate base in Milan will help better serve the needs of Italian enterprise clients, says messaging specialist Infobip.

It’s the latest regional expansion for the Croatian firm, which recently launched offices in Madrid and Stockholm and (soon) France.

“We’ve had deep ties with the Italian market for more than 10 years now, and we’re proud to call many leading Italian companies our partners and clients,” said Massimo Cristini, VP Business Operations at Infobip. “A strong office in Milan will help us to develop our channel partnerships even further. It will also make it much easier for us to give our enterprise customers the local support they need.”

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