I think one of the strategic moves being made by Naspers is to replicate successes in any of its businesses across its countries of operation globally. This is evident in the rollout of OLX, its biggest classifieds’ properties globally; including South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. Naspers owns about 75% of OLX.
Naspers seems to be preparing the platform for Tencent to come into Africa now. Naspers owns 35% of Tencent and Tencent can be said to be one of its profitable investments to date.
Tencent is an investment holding company with subsidiaries that offer everything from online advertising and Web portals to e-commerce platforms and online gaming. It is well known in China for its QQ instant messaging system and it boasts of 784m active user accounts.
Tencent is bringing in a Whatsapp-like application named WeChat. Like WeChat, it offers cross-platform messaging. It also offers group messaging, as well as “hold-to-talk” voice communication and support for sharing images, video and location data. Video calling is also supported. It’s available for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Symbian devices. It is also available as a Web application.
WeChat went global in April of 2012 with an English name (it’s called Weixin in China), and its growth seems to have accelerated a bit since that time. According to Memeburn, it has surpassed 300million users, adding 100 million in the last 4 months.
According to TechCentral, Naspers’ MIH has appointed Brett Loubser, a former Samsung South Africa exec, as WeChat’s “Africa specialist” and has tasked him with the deployment and growth of the service across the continent.
It is expected that the deployment of WeChat in Africa, will start in South Africa and it will take likes of Mxit, Africa’s largest mobile social network.
