Online classified platforms OLX has announced its foray into the Tanzanian market with Facebook’s Internet.org app.
The development was revealed by Thomas Platenga, OLX’s Head of Sub Saharan Africa.
He said that OLX has seen tremendous success in the countries in which they are present.
“In Kenya, we have achieved 98 per cent brand awareness, meaning almost everybody knows OLX and can tell you what it is about. This is the kind of response we hope and know we will get from Tanzania.”
According to statistics, only an estimated 4.4 per cent of the Tanzanian population has access to the Internet, with Facebook being one of the most accessed services. This signifies a large opportunity to connect more people.
“Facebook’s Internet.org app is as revolutionary as OLX and this partnership is one of utmost importance to us. The internet has so much to offer and we believe that with the right tools and information we can revolutionize E-commerce in Africa,” he continued.
OLX is available in more than 100 countries worldwide and 50 languages. This translates to millions of people across the globe using OLX to buy and sell goods, find a job or rent a house every day.
With over 200 million monthly unique users generating traffic of over 11 billion monthly page views or around 360 million page views per day, OLX can only hope to keep growing as it expands its services in Africa.
Platenga also said that the venture into Tanzania was as much strategic as it was necessary.
“Our site in Tanzania is live, and now with this partnership and the availability of OLX as one of the free services in the Internet.org app, the people of Tanzania can get selling.”
OLX has 600 employees across offices in Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, New York and Kenya.
