By Our Reporter
At the beginning of May 2021, ayoba celebrated its 2nd anniversary with an impressive customer base of 5.5million monthly users of the app and an award for Best Mobile application late last year.
Named the Pan African App, thousands of people continue to choose ayoba as their Instant messaging app of choice majorly because it offers more than a chatting platform.
Apart from offering free instant chatting to its customers on MTN, ayoba also offers a captivating entertainment collection of over 100 content channels bringing news, fashion, beauty, sports, and education. Ayoba users can also listen to music and play over 120 game and more within the app.
Commenting about the app, Susan Kayemba, MTN Uganda’s Senior Manager, Digital Services said that SIMFY, the app developer has made it easier for new users to navigate the app.
“We recently launched an in-app assistant called ‘Aya’ to guide new users on how to use an instant messaging app. Aya appears automatically in everyone’s Chats and can run a variety of interactive tutorials for key features within ayoba,” Kayemba said.
She further reiterated that the availability of other languages such as Luganda, Swahili and Kinyarwanda also make it easy for non-English speaking users to use the app.
Ayoba is available in 22 languages including English, French, Luganda, Kinyarwanda, and Swahili, among others.
Furthermore, MTN customers are automatically allocated free data to use ayoba features including messaging, group chats, status updates, in-app channel browsing, gaming, and listening to music. This means they do not need to have MBs to use ayoba and even if they have their own data, it will not be used.
Kayemba said that; “Ayoba messages are end to end encrypted, giving all users their much-needed privacy. We are also currently working on many upgrades and additions to our extensive list of features as well as exciting new content for all our customers.”
“If you are an MTN customer, simply download the ayoba app from the Google Play store and start chatting with your friends and family, play games and watch over 100 entertainment channels at zero MBs,” Kayemba said, noting that you can also read news on the go, get fitness and health tips, beauty and fashion ideas, sports news, Education as well as career tips all for free on Ayoba.
Below is a quick guide on how to access some of these services for free on Ayoba:
Listen to music for free!
Elevate your chatting time by listening to some cool music for free while you chat with your friends and family at no cost.
Simply Open the ayoba app, Select Channels, Select MusicTime Uganda and then Select any playlist of your choice e.g., Millennium Hits, celebrating Burna Boy, WCW (Our own Juliana was celebrated) etc. Click on the “Play” icon and enjoy music while you chat. One can like and share the music within Ayoba.
Play games for free!
While waiting for your friends to respond to your messages on ayoba or may be in a taxi during your daily commute, just launch ayoba and indulge in any of the more than 120 games.
In the ayoba app, click on the menu icon in the top left-hand corner, then select Games. Go ahead Select any Game category of your choice. Tap on any game that you would like to play. A terms and conditions message will be displayed. Select “OK” to continue to play your game.
Send Money without logging out of your app
Avoid the inconvenience of having to leave your chat to send a loved one money that they requested on the chat. Ayoba gives you the liberty to send money within the app and carry on with your conversation without any inconvenience.
In the ayoba app, go to chats and select the person you want to chat with. Select the attachment icon and then select the money icon. Go ahead and select Send MoMo and follow prompts. Enter the amount and reason. You Will be prompted to enter MoMo pin. Transaction will be completed, and you will receive an SMS notification.
To learn how to use the other channels on Ayoba, simply Go to the How-to channel under “Channels”.