Afrigather On the Africa Tech Pageant held a fortnight in the past in Cape City, Digital Virgo introduced that by way of its custom-made fee platform, it had supplied over 25 million Africans entry to digital content material and providers in 2022.
The corporate, which describes itself as ‘a worldwide specialist in fee through telecom operators’ payments and cellular cash’, has a presence in 15 African international locations and is within the technique of multiplying its partnerships with main retailers on the continent.
TechCabal caught up with Digital Virgo’s CEO, Guillaume Briche, on the occasion and had a chat a couple of vary of subjects, together with the corporate’s traction in Africa, its ambitions for the continent and the challenges it has confronted in its operations.
Please inform us extra about Digital Virgo
The mission of Digital Virgo is to provide everybody entry to digital providers and content material by permitting them to pay for these through cellular fee utilizing telecom operators billing options.
There are 8 billion individuals on the earth and most of them have entry to a cell phone and sim card. On the similar time, lower than 20% of individuals have bank cards. So what we do is join customers to retailers who supply digital providers and content material and permit these customers to pay retailers for entry to those providers.
What presence does Digital Virgo have in Africa?
Our presence on the continent is strategic. Presently, the Digital Virgo group does 430 million euros in annual turnover and greater than 20% of this comes from our Africa operations.
This implies nearly 100 million euros of our turnover comes from the continent the place we’ve got a presence in 15 international locations, 10 places of work and 300 individuals working with our purchasers.
We’ve been on the continent since our formation in 2008. We began in North Africa in Morocco then sub-Saharan Africa the place we initially launched in Ghana and South Africa. We then stored rising by way of the continent each organically and thru mergers and acquisitions.
What challenges have you ever confronted in your operations in Africa?
The primary problem we’ve got confronted has been attempting to hyperlink our African operations with our international technique as a result of the continent could be very various. For instance, doing enterprise in say Morocco could be very completely different from doing enterprise in South Africa.
One other problem could be instabilities in some markets we function in however on the constructive aspect, these markets are a really worthwhile asset to us and we’ve got managed to ourselves to operate so all these challenges in our working environments.
What distinctive alternatives would you say can be found in Africa for an organization reminiscent of Digital Virgo?
The primary alternative is that Africa could be very dynamic and issues transfer quick which presents a number of alternatives for our sort of enterprise mannequin. For instance, in the intervening time, wallets and cellular cash are fairly in style on the continent which presents us with alternatives for diversifying our billing strategies.
The market measurement in Africa additionally presents alternatives for scaling. I imply we’re at the moment current in about 15 international locations and we want to add much more as a result of the demand for entry to premium content material on the continent is excessive.
Are they any thrilling tasks that you just guys have on the pipeline that you just want to share with our readers?
We’ve a few thrilling developments, sure. First, our shopper Garena is bringing their “Free Fireplace” sport to customers right here who may have the flexibility to play it by way of service billing. Free Fireplace is likely one of the hottest cellular video games on the earth with over 150 million every day customers.
In video, in the intervening time, we’re offering white label video options which we plan to complement and deploy throughout our quite a few markets on the continent. We’re additionally investing so much in native content material manufacturing.
One other space we’re making strides in is eSport the place we sponsor tournaments and groups in some international locations on the continent like Egypt.
