Orange MEA Partners with Tencent Cloud to Enhance Max it Super-App Ecosystem

Orange MEA Partners with Tencent Cloud to Enhance Max it Super-App Ecosystem

(IN BRIEF) Orange Middle East & Africa (OMEA) has forged a strategic alliance with Tencent Cloud, the cloud arm of global tech giant Tencent, to enhance its super-app Max it and expand its service offerings across the Middle East and Africa region. At Mobile World Congress (MWC), OMEA announced plans to leverage Tencent Cloud’s mobility framework and Tencent Cloud Mini Program Platform (TCMPP) solution to integrate a variety of mini-apps within Max it. This collaboration aims to enrich the Max it ecosystem, improve customer and partner experiences, and bolster OMEA’s presence in the African market. By incorporating mini-app technology starting from the second half of 2024, OMEA aims to onboard a hundred partners and double the adoption of its super-app by 2025. Additionally, this partnership underscores OMEA’s commitment to supporting African entrepreneurship by empowering local startups, merchants, and content creators to develop tailored mini-applications, thereby stimulating innovation and economic growth in the region. Executives from both Orange and Tencent Cloud expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration’s potential to drive digital inclusion and foster innovation in Africa.

(PRESS RELEASE) PARIS, 28-Feb-2024 — /EuropaWire/ — 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.”

About Orange Africa and Middle East (OMEA)
Orange is present in 18 countries in Africa and the Middle East and has 149 million customers at 31 December 2023. With 7.1 billion euros of revenues in 2023, Orange MEA is the first growth area in the Orange group. Orange Money, its flagship mobile based money transfer and financial services offer is available in 17 countries and has more than 90 million customers. Orange, multi-services operator, key partner of the digital transformation provides its expertise to support the development of new digital services in Africa and the Middle East.

About Tencent Cloud
Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s leading cloud companies, is committed to creating innovative solutions to resolve real-world issues and enabling digital transformation for smart industries. Through our extensive global infrastructure, Tencent Cloud provides businesses across the globe with stable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services, leveraging technological advancements such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, AI, IoT and network security. It is our constant mission to meet the needs of industries across the board, including the fields of gaming, media and entertainment, finance, healthcare, property, retail, travel, and transportation.

Media Contacts:

Orange:
Stella Fumey
stella.fumey@orange.com

Ibtissame Nafii
ibtissame.nafii@orange.com

Tencent Cloud:
AJ LIU
ajliu@tencent.com

Judy WONG
judywong@global.tencent.com

SOURCE: Orange