Facebook tempts Tigo Tanzania with free trial and Kiswahili service

Details: James Barton; Category: Consumer Ecosystems; 25 April 2014; 9543 views

Tigo Tanzania has announced a partnership with Facebook which includes free trial access to Facebook services in English plus a new Kiswahili version through their mobile handsets.

The strategic partnership is part of Facebook’s recent Internet.org initiative launched by the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, already commented on by Developing Telecoms. It is the first time that Facebook will be free on any mobile network in East Africa, according to Tigo General Manager Diego Gutierrez, pictured above (left) with Facebook's Nicola D'Elia.

The partnership means Tigo customers can now access Facebook and its mobile messaging application Messenger through their handsets without incurring any data charges and allowing them to connect with more than 1.2 billion people worldwide. It's easy to see the attraction of the deal for Facebook: Tigo has six million customers in Tanzania while Facebook has an estimated two million users in the country.

Nicola D’Elia, Facebook Director for International Growth and Partnerships commented "We're excited to be working with Tigo again to give more people in Tanzania the ability to share and connect free of data charges across Facebook apps and mobile website, and now in the traditional language of Kiswahili."

The time-limited free trial of Facebook also includes the launch of a Facebook service in Kiswahili. It is the first time any major social media company has made a version in Kiswahili, the national language spoken by Tanzanians and majority of the people in East, Central and Southern African region.

Speaking at the launch of the partnership in Dar es Salaam, Gutierrez said: "Facebook has been a fantastic driver of data on mobile networks. With this unique partnership, we are making Tigo stand out from the crowd and giving many customers their first taste of the internet and social media, including in Kiswahili. That’s what creating the digital lifestyle is all about, and it reinforces our strategy to encourage more Tigo customers to use data as part of their daily communications activity."

Tigo is part of Swedish international telecommunications and media company Millicom which focuses exclusively on emerging markets in Latin America and Africa. This is the second time that Facebook and Millicom have partnered following the joint launch of free mobile access to Facebook with Tigo Paraguay in December 2013 and the service’s launch in the historical native Guarani language there.

The timing of the announcement is good for Facebook which unveiled results for Q1 2014 showing a slowdown in revenue growth from Q4 2013 and the prospect of lower gear revenue growth for the rest of the year. Mobile advertising now accounts for 59% of Facebook's total advertising revenue.

Eden Zoller, principal analyst at Ovum commented: "Mobile continues to be the star of the show in terms of revenues and usage - App Installs showed solid progress... although it was disappointing but not surprising to learn that Facebook’s new mobile advertising network is unlikely to have a significant impact on mobile advertising revenues in the near term."