Insights and Celebrations at WASPA’s 20th Anniversary 

MCP Insight’s Toby Padgham recently returned from Johannesburg, South Africa, where he attended the Wireless Applications Service Providers’ Association (WASPA) 20th anniversary celebrations. 

The South African regulator hosted representatives from across the value chain, including content service providers, payment aggregators, mobile network operators, enterprise message solutions, and anti-fraud and monitoring companies like MCP. 

Outgoing chairman James McNab opened the proceedings at the Bryanston Country Club. The event included the election of four board members and presentations from various industry leaders about the South African market. Notable speakers included Anzelle Robertson, newly appointed Program Director at the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF); Nicholas Rossman, also of MEF; Nazia Karrim of the South African Fraud Prevention Service (SAFPS); and Toby Padgham. 

South Africa’s mVAS Market: Q3 2023 & Q1 2024 

Toby shared insights into the South African mobile value-added services (mVAS) market for the past two quarters, discussing key trends identified by MCP’s ad monitoring and compliance platform, MCP SCANNER.

A highlight from Toby’s presentation was data showing MTN’s Disney+ bundle capturing advertising market share in just one month in Q4 2023, with 78% of the top mVAS services advertised via Google. This demonstrated the power of premium partnerships combined with a robust advertising budget; but also demonstrated that the majority of advertising inventory was misplaced across all mobile operators, rather than being targeted at MTN’s own customers. Toby also revealed Vodacom’s rollout of Prime Video in Q1 2024. 

Key takeaways from Toby’s presentation include: 

The election of four new WASPA board members was confirmed: congratulations to James McNab, Dylin Kuni, Tsepang Nenzinane, and Markus Schorn. The day concluded with WASPA’s 20th Anniversary Gala Dinner, which compensated for the cancellation of the golf tournament the previous day due to stormy conditions. 

To learn more about MCP SCANNER, contact the MCP team.

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