Tappi’s Collaboration with MTN Spurs Expansion in Cote d’Ivoire.

Africa’s Leading Digital Commerce Platform Partners with MTN CI to Establish Online Identity & Trust for Côte d'Ivoire’s MSMEs 

19th March 2024. Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire - tappi, the end-to-end digital commerce SaaS solution tailored for Africa’s micro, small and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs), has today announced its expansion into Côte d'Ivoire. Building on its rapidly growing operations in Kenya and Nigeria, tappi’s latest country launch will feature an extension of its existing partnership with telecom giant, MTN, marking a significant step forward for the startup’s mission to drive the digitalisation of MSMEs across Africa. 

For as low as $8/month, Côte d'Ivoire’s MSMEs will receive access to tappi’s SaaS and enterprise-grade tools, empowering them to generate SEO-optimised websites in less than 2 minutes, distribute online ads and secure access to a host of additional digital services. Through tappi’s partnership with MTN Côte D'Ivoire, the telecom’s 17 million customers in the country will also be able to access these services via integrated data bundles, bolstering their capacity to get online, build trust and reach new customers. 

Discussing the expansion, Kenfield Griffith, tappi CEO and co-founder said, “With a strong GDP growth rate of 6.9%, Côte d'Ivoire not only represents the ideal market to empower MSMEs primed to digitise and significantly expand their customer base, but will act as a critical gateway to access Francophone Africa’s 150 Million consumers as we identify future growth opportunities across the region.” 

“Alongside MTN, we are proud to kick start this mission with one of our top partners who has been integral to tappi since day one and is equally committed to the goal of digitising MSMEs across Africa. With over 17 million customers in Côte d'Ivoire alone, and a robust mobile money network, we firmly believe MTN holds the perfect reach, scale and infrastructure to seamlessly get technology into the hands of MSMEs ready to grow their businesses, and we look forward to driving ahead with the next phase of our partnership.” 

Since its inception in 2022, tappi has been on a rapid growth journey capturing verified reviews on over $3M consumer transactions and engaging with over 150K consumers. 

According to UNECA, SMEs form over 98% of total businesses in Côte d'Ivoire but despite their importance to the economy, many businesses still face major difficulties building a trusted online presence. This is primarily due to current tools being too complex, the requirements for an international credit card or the listing of websites in places where trust is difficult to gauge, establishing significant hurdles to access and convert new customers. 

Djibril Ouattara, CEO, MTN Côte d'Ivoire, adds, ‘MTN strives to lead the way in delivering a bold new digital world, guided by our Ambition 2025 strategy. We believe in providing the benefits of a modern connected life to all, with a focus on supporting MSMEs as the future drivers of digital business and economic growth. Through connectivity, communication, collaboration, and cloud solutions, we aim to empower businesses for sustainable growth.’ 

Through its powerful end-to-end digital commerce stack, tappi facilitates a seamless online business profile creation process through an intuitive chat experience. Leveraging payments, messaging and AI, the platform is rapidly emerging as the SEO backbone to boost revenue for MSMEs across the continent, helping businesses gain visibility, consolidate payments with verified reviews to build online trust and pay for online Ads with mobile airtime. 

About tappi

tappi digitises small businesses across Africa. tappi is the end-to-end SaaS for MSMEs across Africa, solving the problem of visibility and credibility for small businesses. tappi innovated on the delivery of SaaS and enterprise-grade tools to MSMEs in Africa for as low as $2/month, bringing MSMEs online, as well as building a payment platform for MSMEs to access and pay for Ads online with mobile airtime. tappi has partnered and deeply integrated with some of the largest mobile operators and banks in Africa, giving them an addressable market of over 100M MSMEs, including anyone with a ‘side hustle’. tappi is focused on the over $20B SME market across Africa.

About MTN Côte d’Ivoire

A subsidiary of MTN Group, MTN CI is an innovative operator whose vision is to provide a bold new digital world to its customers. Inspired by the belief that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life, MTN has established its “Ambition 2025” strategy that provides cutting-edge digital solutions for Africa’s progress.

MTN CI is one of the largest private investors in the country that have contributed to the development of a thousand of SME Partners and suppliers, but also creation of tens thousands of direct