Ayoba
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Ayoba is a messenger and "super app" that the MTN group had been building since 2019 together with the South African company Simfy Africa. The app combined messaging, calls, channel feeds, games, music and transfers through MTN Mobile Money.
The main thing to know before you plan any work here: the platform is shut down. Version 7 of the terms of service, dated February 2026, states outright that Ayoba shuts down for good on 2 April 2026, that registration of new accounts is disabled, and that the app has been removed from the stores and cannot be reinstalled. After the shutdown a 30-day support window remained — for account questions only, with no working features.
This guide stays in the reference for two reasons. Ayoba still turns up in roundups of "African social networks" — and it is worth knowing that you cannot count on it. And the way it was built (free data from the carrier, channels, mini apps, a business API) is a model that carriers across Africa and the Middle East keep reproducing.
Who's here
In a press release dated 12 November 2019, MTN reported that Ayoba had reached 1 million monthly active users and worked in eight countries — Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, the Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan and South Africa. The same release lists the languages: isiZulu, isiXhosa, Pidgin, Yoruba, Swahili, Hausa, French and English.
A later figure comes from an ITWeb article about ayoba marketplace dated 24 January 2025: the platform claims 35 million monthly active users and 17 key markets. This is the platform's own claim, not an independent measurement.
The "About us" page names Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and South Africa as its main countries of presence, marked "available to MTN subscribers", while the contact form on the same page offers the country codes of Afghanistan, Botswana, Liberia, Rwanda, Eswatini, Uganda, Yemen and Zambia.
Under the terms, the owner of the app is Progressive Tech Holdings, registered in Mauritius; the managing company is Simfy Africa Pty Ltd of Cape Town.
Getting started
There is no way to start: under the February 2026 terms, registration of new users is disabled and the app has been removed from the stores. Our own check confirms this: the Google Play listing for the package com.ayoba.ayoba does not open in the South African, Nigerian, Ghanaian or Ivorian storefronts, an Apple search for the name ayoba in the South African storefront returns no official app, and the web version at web.ayoba.me answers with a server error and a farewell line instead of an interface.
Here is how it used to work, according to the FAQ section. An account was tied to a phone number and confirmed with a one-time code; moving to a new handset required a working SIM with the same number, and activating on a new device automatically switched the app off on the old one. A backup of your messages was created once a day and was restored only when you signed in after confirming the code. The age threshold in the terms is 14; minors needed an adult's consent.
What you can publish
The formats the platform listed itself: text and voice messages, group chats, voice and video calls, photos, files, location, statuses and polls — all of it described in the features section. Separately there were "stories" with media or text; how to create them is described in the FAQ section.
Public content lived in channels. The platform reported more than 150 free channels covering sport, fashion, beauty, news, humour, health, entertainment and education — updated daily in English, French, Arabic and a number of local languages, including isiZulu and Kinyarwanda.
What is forbidden is set out in version 1 of the community guidelines, dated February 2025. They require respectful communication, ban abusive and discriminatory statements, and specify that the platform removes content that breaks the rules or threatens its reputation. None of the pages we opened states numeric limits on message length or file size.
How to grow
The platform described no promotion tools of its own for an ordinary author: public placement went through partner programmes. The partners page listed five formats of cooperation: service partnerships (mini apps), gaming ones (HTML5 games with no installation), brand ones (display advertising in high-traffic sections), content ones (images, video, podcasts and editorial material in English, French and African languages — uploaded manually or via RSS) and communication ones (the business API).
On advertising, the platform wrote that campaigns could be targeted at a territory, a region or the whole continent, and promised "millions of impressions" — with no specific figures, no rate card and no counting methodology. There are no advertising rates on the pages we opened.
The public pages contain no description of a feed algorithm, of built-in channel statistics or of an analytics dashboard for authors.
Path to monetization
Judging by the public pages, Ayoba had no programme that paid authors for views: neither the features page nor the partners page mentions rewarding content creators even once.
Earning was meant to work differently. First, money transfers: in some countries MTN Mobile Money worked inside the app, and the platform named the list — Ghana, Uganda, Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon. Second, the ayoba marketplace trading platform, announced in January 2025: the ITWeb article states a flat 4% fee per transaction and Zapper as the payment partner.
For the user the app was free, but with an important caveat: messages and files went over mobile data and were not charged to MTN subscribers under a promotion, whereas calls inside the app were billed as ordinary voice calls, against minutes or account balance rather than against data.
Tools and automation
An official business API did exist. The platform described it as a solution for medium and large businesses and listed: receiving messages from a customer and outbound business conversations, automated reply scenarios, routing to a live agent, and integration with CRM and marketing automation systems — all of it on the business API page. It separately stressed that MTN subscribers could reply with no balance and no data.
The developer portal sat at developer.ayoba.me — the link to it is given in the features section. At the time of our check the domains developer.ayoba.me and business.ayoba.me do not resolve in DNS, which means the documentation and the developer dashboard are unavailable. We found no API pricing, no message limits and no technical requirements.
We found no third-party scheduling or analytics services with confirmed support for Ayoba. Given that the platform has shut down, there is no point looking for them now.
Limits and rules
The key limit is the shutdown itself. The terms specify that they apply only until the stop date, except for the clauses on privacy, liability and intellectual property, and that during the support window the features are unavailable.
A geographic limit applied earlier too: the site's pages carry a warning that Ayoba is available only in selected regions. The free data was tied to MTN subscribers, described as promotional with a fair use policy, and not available in every country.
Deleting an account was irreversible: along with the profile went messages, files and also the groups, channels, music and apps the user had created; what had been sent to other people stayed with the recipients.
The legal framework is split across two jurisdictions: the app's operator is registered in Mauritius, the managing company in South Africa. That is worth taking into account for anyone studying similar carrier-run super apps.
Who it's for
No one, in terms of practical work. You cannot plan a presence, buy advertising or connect an API on a platform that has ceased to operate.
This guide is useful in three situations. If you found Ayoba in someone else's roundup of African promotion channels — the roundup is out of date. If you ran a channel or a business account there, check whether your data and contacts have been exported, even though the support window has already closed. And if you study carrier super apps as a class, the story of Ayoba shows both the model (free data as a driver of installs) and its weak point: once the free data was wound down, retention turned out to be low — that assessment is given by TechCabal in an article dated 24 March 2026. This is the publication's assessment, not a measurement by the platform.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the platform describes itself as follows: "Explore Africa's Super-App with free chat, games, music, channels & more"
This is the platform's statement about itself, not an independent assessment
source, checked 2026-07-28
Who's here
MTN reported 1 million monthly active users as of 12 November 2019
The owner's claim, not an independent measurement
source, checked 2026-07-28
as of November 2019, 8 countries are stated: Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, the Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, South Africa
source, checked 2026-07-28
the "About us" page names Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and South Africa as its main countries, marked "available to MTN subscribers"
source, checked 2026-07-28
in an article about ayoba marketplace dated 24 January 2025 the platform claims 35 million monthly active users and 17 key markets
The platform's claim in a trade publication, no methodology given
source, checked 2026-07-28
Getting started
there is no longer a barrier to entry because there is no entry: «Ayoba will permanently shut down on 2 April 2026. Existing users may continue to use the ayoba app until 2 April 2026, after which all services will stop»; «New registrations were permanently disabled prior to the publication of these revised app terms. The ayoba app is no longer available on app stores and cannot be downloaded or reinstalled on any device»
the quotations are verbatim, the source language is English. The heading «Important Notice: Final Platform Shutdown» stands at the top of the terms of use, version 7, February 2026. The thirty-day support window (2 April to 2 May 2026) covered only account questions: «No features or functionality will be available during this period». As of 7 August 2026 the closing date passed four months ago. The other ayoba lines in the database describe the arrangements in force before the closure
source, checked 2026-08-07
Account and access
«You may not use the Ayoba App if you are younger than 14 years of age. If you are older than 14 years but younger than 18 years of age, your parents or another competent adult must consent to the terms and conditions below on your behalf»
the quotation is verbatim, the source language is English. The condition applied until the platform closed on 2 April 2026
source, checked 2026-08-07
account deletion is irreversible: messages, files, and the groups, channels, music and apps created by the user are deleted
source, checked 2026-07-28
Content
the platform claimed more than 150 free channels updated daily
source, checked 2026-07-28
Advertising
five partnership formats: mini apps, HTML5 games, display advertising, content partnerships (upload manually or via RSS), business API
source, checked 2026-07-28
advertising campaigns can be targeted at a territory, a region or the whole continent; no rate card is published
source, checked 2026-07-28
How the money works here
the platform did not pay an ordinary user and expressly forbade earning on it: «You must not: … 6.8 use the Ayoba App for commercial and/or business purposes; 6.9 use resell, rent, or charge for any functionality provided by the Ayoba App or any information obtained from the use of the Ayoba App»; rights in what was posted passed over without reward: «you grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide, irrevocable and unrestricted licence»
the quotations are verbatim, the source language is English, clauses 6.8, 6.9 and 10.3. The terms of use describe neither revenue sharing, nor donations, nor any reward for content in a single clause
source, checked 2026-08-07
content did not arrive on the platform by itself but through partnership arranged by correspondence: the «Content Partnerships» section on the partners page describes selection — «ayoba is always on the lookout for the best content for our huge user base. Content is primarily in English and French… Content is arranged into editorial channels»; there is no application form of its own and no self-service connection on the page, and the only action is «Contact us»
the quotations are verbatim, the source language is English. The page names no terms of reward for a content partner: neither a share, nor a rate, nor a threshold. The page remains accessible even after the app closed
source, checked 2026-08-07
MTN Mobile Money worked inside the app in Ghana, Uganda, Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon
source, checked 2026-07-28
the ayoba marketplace announcement (January 2025) states a flat 4% fee per transaction and Zapper as the payment partner
source, checked 2026-07-28
Pricing
calls inside the app were billed as ordinary voice calls (minutes or account balance), not as mobile data
An important difference from the usual messengers
source, checked 2026-07-28
free data for MTN subscribers was promotional, with a fair use policy, and not available in every country
source, checked 2026-07-28
Restrictions
the platform announced: Ayoba shuts down for good on 2 April 2026; registration of new accounts is disabled, the app has been removed from the stores
Terms of service version 7, February 2026. KEY FACT of the card
source, checked 2026-07-28
after the stop a 30-day support window is stated, for account questions only, with no working features
source, checked 2026-07-28
minimum age 14; users aged 14 to 18 need the consent of a parent or another adult
source, checked 2026-07-28
Legal
the app operator is Progressive Tech Holdings, registered in Mauritius (reg. no. 117490 C2/GBL)
Clause 1.1 of the terms
source, checked 2026-07-28
the managing company is Simfy Africa Pty Ltd, Cape Town, South Africa
source, checked 2026-07-28
API access
business API for medium and large businesses: inbound messages from a customer, outbound business conversations, automated scenarios, routing to an agent, integration with CRM and marketing automation systems
source, checked 2026-07-28
the developer portal developer.ayoba.me and business.ayoba.me do not resolve in DNS as of 2026-07-28
The link to the portal is on the features page, the domain itself is unavailable
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: en
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
channel content in English, French, Arabic and a number of local languages, including isiZulu and Kinyarwanda
source, checked 2026-07-28
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