In our 5 minutes with profiles, MEF members talk about their business, their aspirations for the future and the wider mobile industry. This week, Joseph Njel Nguidjol introduces VAS specialist, Next Africa Holding (NEXAH).
What does NEXAH do?
NEXAH is a Value-Added Services company based in Cameroon in Africa.
We are specialized in building Value-Added Services for Mobile Network Operators, including Mobile Gaming Services, Mobile Health Solutions and other Mobile services.
We are also an A2P SMS messaging service provider. We offer to local brands a platform and APIs to help them communicate directly to their end users through SMS services (SMS Marketing, SMS Alert, SMS API, etc.).
We also develop Mobile and Web applications for our customers.
When did you launch and what growth have you seen?
NEXAH launched in 2017, and since then, we have more than triple in size and revenues. We have direct connections with local Mobile Network Operators in Cameroun, and we are planning to do the same with other operators in Africa, especially in Ivory Coast, DRC, Senegal, and so on.
In 2019, our services counts more than 500Â 000 active users and still growing.
We actually want to be a company with both B2B and B2C focus, serving millions of end users, and hundreds of thousands of businesses across Africa. We are also really open to build strong partnerships with other companies to help this happen.“
What are your main goals?
Our main goal in the first leg is to be able to operate in all French speaking African countries. This is actually a market of more than 200 millions customers and growing.
Then in the second leg is to go further with all other countries in Africa.
As we can see in Cameroon, services we offer are actually in high demand in this part of the continent, with not enough supply.
Where do you see your company in three years’ time?
Three years from now, we hope we will have a presence in all African French speaking countries, serving millions of customers.
We actually want to be a company with both B2B and B2C focus, serving millions of end users, and hundreds of thousands of businesses across Africa.
We are also really open to build strong partnerships with other companies to help this happen.
What aspect of mobile is most exciting to you right now?
There are many great innovation coming out, especially when we focus on the African Market.
Today, Mobile advertising is actually coming out as an excellent way to reach billions users in Africa. This can be done through SMS, display ads, and so on.
But in near future, technologies like RCS will just reshape the market of Advertising. This is why we keep this technology in our radar.
There are also Mobile Payment solutions, as a way to monetize our services. We will work closely with partners to have a solution to ease payments for customers we serve.
What’s the most critical issue that will hit mobile within the next 12 months?
The most critical issue remain the drop of voice revenues for Mobile network Operators, due to services like Whatsapp, Skype, Telegram, etc.
Therefore, we have to find new way to work with Mobile Network Operators to develop new revenues streams. This is what lead us to Value-Added Services, Mobile Adverting, Bulk SMS (And RCS in the near future), and finally Mobile Payment.
NEXAH want to play a bigger role in these industries for the African Market.
Apart from your own, which mobile companies are the ones to watch in the year ahead?
Nowadays, there are many startups and small companies doing amazing job of redesigning the Mobile Ecosystem.
We think these companies have to stay in our radars, since companies like Facebook, Google and others have shown that growth can sometimes come very fast.
But out of these companies, we have to keep in eyes big players like Mobile Network Operators, Banks, traditional TV companies which will reshape their businesses, and also classic advertising companies.
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