PM Connect skyrockets African presence with Vodacom partnership

PM Connect has secured a large-scale contract with Africa’s biggest mobile carrier, Vodacom. The deal allows us to bring premium branded content for international clients – including our subscription site for wrestling giant WWE – to Africa for the first time.

The partnership with Vodacom, which has a 43 per cent market share in South Africa alone, builds on our growing presence in the African market over the past two years.

With our African offering previously centred around gaming, the deal will enable us to share mobile-payment-enabled sports and entertainment subscription sites to the continent, where brand interest has previously gone untapped.

Chris Purdie, Group Commercial Director at PM Connect, said:

“This marks a key step for PM Connect, as continued expansion into the African market features heavily in our ongoing growth plans. We’re looking forward to helping our clients access new audiences through the provision of quality sporting entertainment, and boosting accessibility of products and services for consumers. At present, our deal with Vodacom focuses on South Africa, the continent’s highest GDP country, but our sights are set on a widespread roll-out across the continent.”

Our African expansion will primarily target “greenfield” markets where, with home internet connections sparse, smartphone payments are often the only way for brands to reach content-hungry audiences.

The Vodacom deal was announced to coincide with AfricaCom, Africa’s largest technology, media and telecoms conference. The PM Connect team attended the event in Cape Town on 13-14 November, joining 14, 000 attendees for a series of speeches, workshops and networking opportunities.

Purdie added:

“With the African carrier billing payments market set to triple in the next five years, growth in the continent is a key opportunity not only to drive revenue, but to introduce global brands to entirely new audiences. As a Birmingham-based business, our growing presence in Africa allows us to act as a spearhead for technological excellence on a global scale, enabling us to provide more opportunities here in the local economy.”

 

“Our new contract with Vodacom will provide us with a firm position in the African market, while offering a unique selling point to our clients in a region where mobile phone use for billing is set to soar and credit and debit card adoption remains low. Our mobile payment solutions will be crucial for global brands to succeed in markets that are otherwise difficult to monetise.”