Research unveiled by mobile content company biNu suggests there will be 990 million feature phones by 2016, highlighting the need to still optimise content for feature phones.
biNu is a Java app that offers feature phones the capacity to run smartphone applications such as games, social media application and book readers.
Mark Shoebridge, the Vice President of Marketing at biNu, told Mobile Web East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, the product is changing the way Africans get content and especially reading material.
Shoebridge said the small screens that feature phones offer are not a hindrance to how people access content on their devices, as it as a whole attracts 4.8 million users globally, with 1.5 million coming from the African continent. The platform also charges for premium content where they use biNu Credits that can be used to purchase, books, games or music.
The World Reader app on the platform seems to be a favourite on the platform as they target 533,000 readers in Africa, with romance and educational titles as the most favoured categories in the app. Women constitute the majority of the readership.
biNU has partnered with several mobile money transfers to make biNU Credit a reality, which users can buy using mobile money services such as Paga.
The success of Binu convinced the creators that content consumption should not be exclusive to smartphones.
