Eskimi, the Lithuanian-founded mobile social network that’s been booming in parts of Africa, has been making a few important partnerships lately. Most recently the company has partnered with Nokia to launch a new Eskimi app for the Asha range of devices, which will allow them to both provide a better browsing experience for their users, and allow their users to use less data (and therefore less cost) when browsing profiles of their friends and strangers, asking questions in an Ask.fm style forum, or using the company’s virtual currency.
Emmanuel Oluwatosin, Partner Manager, Nokia West and Central Africa, says, “It’s great to have Eskimi on board of Nokia store. Eskimi has taken Nigerian market by storm and we want our customers to have all the local and relevant content through the application store. Exclusively on the new Nokia app, new Eskimi users who will start to use the app, will get Eskimi coins as a gift from Nokia”.
In addition to the app launch, CEO Vytas Paukštys tells us they’re partnering on the operator side of the equation. “The most important recent partnership was with MTN Nigeria, a largest mobile operator. We launched Eskimi bundle, a special data product for Nigerian users to browse Eskimi at a better rate. This helped us grow significantly in Nigeria, where we currently have almost 8 million members.”
Today the company has 14 million users in total, which is a good increase but not insane growth from last December’s 10 million user milestone. Getting a wider geographic footprint seems to be on the roadmap as Paukštys tells us, “We started focusing on other African markets like Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa and all these markets combined account for more than 2 million members currently.”
Up next Paukštys tells us right now they’re working on two important projects, so we’ll have to stay posted with the company.
Eskimi can be downloaded from the Nokia Store, here.
