PRESS RELEASE

9mobile Voicemail Launch

LAGOS, NIGERIA AND CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 14, 2019

Lagos, Nigeria and AfricaCom, Cape Town, South Africa, November 14, 2019: 9mobile, a leading telecom operator in Nigeria, in partnership with Kirusa, a global leader in messaging and voice solutions over data networks, today announced the launch of the 9mobile InstaVoice Agent over RCS (Rich Communication Services) for its subscribers in Nigeria, becoming the first carrier worldwide to offer voicemail and missed call alerts over RCS. InstaVoice is a unique cloud-based, call completion solution offered by Kirusa that enables users to receive and send voicemails, missed call alerts, Voice SMS and notification of reachability. So far, this service was offered to 9mobile subscribers over the SMS and Voice channels, as well as over a smartphone app. With this launch, Nigerians can access InstaVoice over RCS, a new and innovative channel to receive voicemail and missed call alerts.

Touted as the next-generation native messaging evolution, RCS is an update to SMS, offering features for enhanced smartphone messaging such as high-resolution photo and video sharing, location sharing, group chats, read receipts, etc., all of which was not available on SMS. 9mobile is the first operator in Nigeria to launch RCS, and the first operator in the world to provide voicemail and missed call alert service using an RCS Agent. This launch not only transforms how users experience InstaVoice, receiving voicemail and missed call alerts instantly on RCS; but also represents 9mobile’s initiative to improve the user experience for all 9mobile services using RCS. 9mobile offers the InstaVoice service free to all users, and the InstaVoice RCS Agent will be available free of any charges as well.

The InstaVoice RCS Agent allows users to view and listen to their voicemails from within the messages app, without the need to dial into an IVR, or the need to download a mobile app. Users receive instant notifications with the photo of the sender when they get a voicemail or a missed call, and get several options, including calling back, converting voicemail to text, and listening to voicemail, simply by clicking a button in the RCS message. Users can also set up or edit their profiles, including names and photos, from within the messages app.

“We are excited to pioneer the launch of RCS in Nigeria and to introduce the RCS channel for enterprises to communicate with their customers. RCS provides a natural channel for us to upgrade our own services, and we are pleased to partner with Kirusa to offer voicemail and missed calls over RCS. We believe this will further enhance the usage and adoption of voicemail in Nigeria, giving users unmatched convenience and value,” said Bola Afuye, Head of Digital Media, 9mobile.

Kirusa is a Jibe Messaging Partner. Jason Choy, Director Communications Product Partnerships, EMEA, Google said, "We are excited to see Kirusa and 9mobile leading the way by launching the first RCS agent in Nigeria on Google's RCS MaaP platform. Bringing modern messaging to everyone on Android is important to us and we look forward to supporting Kirusa and 9mobile further."

Inderpal Singh Mumick, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Kirusa said, “We are glad that 9mobile is launching the RCS channel for the popular InstaVoice service in Nigeria. Any 9mobile user enabled for RCS can now get their missed calls and voicemails over RCS, enhancing their user experience, and familiarizing them to the additional value of RCS Business Messaging.”

With over 100 million monthly active users and more than 150 billion calls managed till date, InstaVoice is the most preferred call completion solution, trusted by dozens of carriers across the globe. InstaVoice provides many industry-leading features, including a mobile app to view missed calls and listen to voicemails to multiple phone numbers owned by the user, seeing your outgoing voicemails, ability to withdraw voicemails, and transcription for the conversion of voicemails to text.

About 9mobile
Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Limited (EMTS), trading as ‘9mobile’, is a Nigerian private limited liability company licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to provide a broad range of telecommunication services including voice and data services across the country. Formerly trading as Etisalat Nigeria, 9mobile commenced commercial operations in October 2008.

In our over 11 years of operations, 9mobile has established a reputation for best-in-class Quality of Service (QoS), innovation and exceptional customer experience among mobile network operators (MNOs) in Nigeria. 9mobile has been at the forefront of technological innovations including high definition voice enhancements and digital business solutions. At 9mobile, innovation is not just a buzz word; it’s about how we make people’s lives more meaningful and devise new ways to solve existing problems. As an environmentally responsible brand, our Environmental Management System (EMS) was certified to ISO 14001:2004 Standard in the first quarter of 2017, making 9mobile the first (MNO) to achieve this certification in Nigeria.

In July 2017, we launched our new brand identity – 9mobile, reflecting the bold and creative attributes we share with our valued subscribers especially the vibrant youth segment. Our new name represents our authentic Nigerian heritage, Afro-centricity, and our evolution over a decade of operations. For more information, visit http://www.9mobile.com.ng.

About Kirusa
Kirusa is reimagining messaging and voice in the data era. Embracing the paradigm shift in enterprise messaging, we are helping enterprises plan and implement IP messaging strategies that create exciting possibilities for customer engagement. Kirusa’s technology and connectivity to OTT messaging platforms and RCS providers and carriers, including Google, enables enterprises to build and deploy chatbots. Enterprises can use these chatbots to have conversations with their customers with rich media, natural language processing, and machine learning, over OTT messaging apps, and the built-in Android messages app using RCS. Our solutions include Kirusa Konnect™, an omnichannel Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) for enterprises that helps bolster brand-customer engagement with chatbots, IP messaging, SMS and voice; InstaVoice®, a unique call completion solution that provides visual voicemails and missed calls, and helps mobile carriers monetize missed calls in their networks; InstaVoice ReachMe, a smartphone app using voice over data to provide inexpensive voice roaming and virtual numbers; and Kirusa Channels, a platform that allows fans to connect with their favorite celebrities. Thousands of enterprises and over a hundred million users benefit from our solutions. We have partnerships with over fifty mobile carriers. Kirusa’s solutions are built on its patented technology and highly reliable, scalable multimodal and cloud platforms, which manage over 3 billion transactions and over 100 million active users every month. Headquartered in New Jersey and led by an experienced team of mobile technologists, Kirusa has offices in three continents. For more information, visit http://www.kirusa.com.

ADVISORY BOARD