Glo Mobile service rockets Nigeria's access to mobile email and online chat

The digital divide in Nigeria, Africa's highest populated country with 150 million people, is being bridged to give Nigerians with any SMS-capable mobile phone handset access to pay-as-you-go two-way internet messaging services.


Glo Mobile, part of the award-winning Globacom, Nigeria's largest independent mobile phone network, is rolling out the new low-cost GloMessenger service to its entire 25 million subscriber base using ForgetMeNot Africa's Message Optimiser mobile technology. The service converts emails into SMS format and vice-versa, enabling users to send and receive emails and online chat messages using any standard SMS-capable mobile phone handset.


GloMessenger rockets the country's access to the Internet. ITU figures show before the launch of GloMessenger only 24 million Nigerians (16 per cent of the population) had access to the Internet.


ForgetMeNot Africa's Chief Operating Officer, Jeremy George, said: "Glo Mobile is putting another brick in the bridge across the digital divide in Nigeria, using ForgetMeNot Africa's technology to offer widespread, cheap-to-use mobile email to millions of Nigerians. Only 5 per cent of Nigerian households have a computer and the lack of cable access to the Internet makes accessing broadband difficult for the vast majority of Nigerians. Now they can keep in touch with their friends and family via email and online chat on basic handsets without any downloads."


Internet use across Africa remains low in comparison to Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific so the market potential for Message Optimiser in Africa is huge. By the end of 2008, 246 million Africans had mobile subscriptions, yet only 13 per cent (32 million) had access to the Internet due to poor quality fixed telephone lines. Mobile phones may be the only way for the vast majority of Africans to ever access the Internet.


GloMessenger is particularly attractive to young "early adopters" because it gives them a considerably cheaper and more convenient way of accessing two-way email and online chat compared to a standard Internet connection. What's more, the service incorporates popular chat services such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Windows Live and Gtalk so that users can send and receive messages, update their status and continue to chat online while on the go with no PC or internet access.


Globacom's Head of Valued Added Services, Samson Isa, said: "Deploying ForgetMeNot Africa software for millions of Nigerians is another step in Globacom becoming the biggest and best telecommunications provider in Africa. It follows our continuing investment in Nigeria's telecoms infrastructure. GloMessenger gives all Nigerian people a chance to enjoy cheap Internet services and keep in touch with their friends and family both in Nigeria and abroad through two-way email and online chat."