December 3, 2012 · by Elly Okutoyi

Eskimi hits 10 million members worldwide

Social networking site Eskimi has reached the 10 million users milestone, with Nigeria remaining the site’s largest subscriber base with over five million users.

This represents a three million increase in its user base in less than 6 months. The site had seven million users in May this year.

Eskimi’s chief executive Vytas Paukštys said the team has been working hard in 2012 to ensure that African consumers have the best possible mobile experience to have fun, meet new people and socialise online.

Opera Software recognized it as the second most visited site in Nigeria behind Facebook, and ahead of Internet giants Google, Yahoo, BBC and Goal.com.

Eskimi’s other large markets include Ghana, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Eskimi has been focusing on the feature phone audience, which is 95 percent of mobiles users in Africa, while most of the products are now built for iOS and Android platforms. Some observers say this may be because Africa is expected to have smartphone penetration of 40 percent in five years’ time.

Eskimi also recently launched its money market platform aimed at bringing e-commerce to its Nigerian customers via special tools.

These tools allow Eskimi customers the opportunity to buy and test the new payment option to pay for a host of music, movie and mobile content.

Having been originally launched as a simple mobile web chat service, Eskimi has also been out to revolutionise mobile marketing with their new service that will see its clients carry out sales promotions, performance and crowdsourcing campaigns among others. Its major clients in Kenya and Nigeria include DealDey, Dettol and Indomie.

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