Orange Middle East & Africa, a major telecom player in the Middle East and Africa, announces a strategic partnership with Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, to enrich the ecosystem and service offering of its super-app Max it for businesses and populations in the region.
At Mobile World Congress (MWC), Orange Middle East and Africa (OMEA) announced its collaboration with Tencent Cloud to adopt Tencent Cloud's mobility framework and Tencent Cloud Mini Program Platform (TCMPP) solution to create an open platform for Max it to integrate a wide range of mini-apps within its super-app. Leveraging its track record of supporting Tencent’s Weixin/WeChat ecosystem, which has over 1.1 billion monthly active Mini Program users, Tencent Cloud’s technological expertise will empower OMEA in the field of mini-apps to enrich the Max it ecosystem and improve the customer and partner experience, while strengthening its position in the African market.
By gradually integrating mini-app technology from the second half of 2024 thanks to its Digital Factory, OMEA aims at giving access to its platform to a hundred partners, global and local, and double the adoption of its super-app by 2025. The partnership with Tencent Cloud is part of OMEA's vision ("the world at your fingertip") to create with Max it a unique digital ecosystem in Africa, inclusive and accessible to all digital and content players, with the goal of putting the world within reach of its customers.
Furthermore, OMEA commits to supporting African entrepreneurship through this alliance by offering local startups, merchants, content creators, as well as major brands and companies the opportunity to develop mini-applications tailored to the needs of each country. This approach will not only enhance African innovation but also stimulate the local economy by creating new employment opportunities and economic growth.
Bruno Zerbib, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Orange highlighted the technological interest of this partnership by commenting, "The MEA Region is a vibrant place for innovation and we are committed to give the ecosystem the means to develop new services through the best technologies. We chose Tencent Cloud for its leadership and scalable technology that allows the creation of mini-apps specific to our markets but also provides access to an existing platform of rich and varied mini-apps. With this partnership, we can offer our customers an unmatched diversity of services from different business verticals in one single app."
Jérôme Hénique, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa, emphasizes the important milestone this partnership represents in the development of Max it, "This partnership with Tencent Cloud is a key step in our vision to offer innovative and high-value services to our users. Enriching Max it with innovative mini-apps is essential to strengthen the value proposition of Max it, increase the penetration of our super-app among Orange and non-Orange customers, and amplify our social impact."
Fred Sun, General Manager of Europe, Tencent Cloud said: "We are thrilled to collaborate with Orange to enrich Max it with our TCMPP solution. This collaboration represents a unique opportunity to energize innovation and digital inclusion in Africa, facilitating the development of use cases and services tailored to local needs while promoting African entrepreneurship. Our experience in supporting Weixin/WeChat, one of the world’s original super-apps, makes us the ideal partner for Orange. We look forward to working with the African enterprises and support its ecosystem through Tencent Cloud’s products and solutions in the near future."
