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Innovation Prize Steers Mobile Event Ticketing Platform to Takeoff
Feb 16, 2012 (Business Daily/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
Three Kenyan techpreneurs have developed a mobile ticketing application that saves travellers the hustle of queuing to buy bus, air, and event tickets.
The application dubbed M-Shop is a platform that allows consumers to order, pay for, obtain and validate tickets for events, travel, goods, and services.
The techies -- Kelvin Ziano, Marcel Auja, and Alloys Meshack developed and entered the mobile based application in last year's Pivot 25 competition in which they emerged winners in the mobile payments and commerce category.
The competition, held in June, was conceptualised by m:lab East Africa. It was meant to spur creativity among mobile application developers.
Winning the competition gave the trio an opportunity to turn their dream idea into a business venture.
They won a $5,000 (Sh415,000) cash prize.
The award came with a one year incubation slot at m:lab East Africa, a technical development centre based at iHub in Nairobi.
The story of how the trio hatched the idea of creating a mobile based ticketing solution is at the very least bizarre.
"One of our friends lost his girlfriend after he was late to purchase a ticket for her to attend a party in town. This got us thinking that had it been possible to buy the ticket through a mobile phone perhaps the relationship would not have broken up," said Auja, the CEO of MTL Systems, the company the trio formed to actualise their business idea.
The unfortunate event gave birth to a timely innovation that is M-Shop. Mobile ticketing refers to a solution where customers can procure tickets from any location and at any time using mobile phones.
"Mobile tickets increase customer convenience by providing a new and simple way of purchasing tickets. It also reduces production and distribution costs associated with traditional paper-based ticketing," said Marcel.
The M-Shop application is available in Java and Symbian.
Blackberry and Android versions of the application are currently being developed and should be ready in a month's time.
The solution is also provided through USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) technology which is accessible through any mobile phone. For now, the service is available to Safaricom subscribers by dialling *512#
The use of mobile phones beyond the traditional calling and texting functions is fast gaining currency in Kenya. The invention of M-Pesa converted mobile phones into mobile wallets which allow money transfer and payment of utilities such as water and electricity bills.
Kenya's mobile teledensity stood at 68.1 per cent by September last year, inspiring mobile developers to create applications for use in all spheres of life such as agriculture, health, education.
"We successfully completed a pilot testing phase with Modern Coast Express where over 13,516 people interacted," said Meshack, one of the co-founders of M-Shop who works as the chief technical officer at MTL Systems.
Application went live
The application went live last October with Modern Coast Express signing up as the first bus company to allow its commuters to book their tickets through the M-Shop application.
The application is only available on the mobile version.
By logging into the system, the commuter selects his destination, time of travel, seat of choice and pays via M-Pesa through paybill number 880400. A confirmation is sent to the applicant's mobile phone, which he uses to claim a seat on the bus.
"Kenyans hate queues, they would rather do the ticketing on phone than line up for them," said Meshack.
The service charges a fee equivalent to 2.5 per cent of the value of the ticket, with a minimum charge of Sh20. For example, if the fare for Nairobi to Mombasa is Sh1,300 then the user pays a service charge of Sh32.50 bringing the total cost to Sh1332.50.
The trio interface their application with the client's software to allow seamless connection between bookings made via M-Shop and the service providers' system.
"Last November, we averaged 13,560 hits with 46 complete bookings for only one bus company - Modern Coast," MTL Systems said in a statement to the Business Daily.
The techpreneurs are looking forward to bringing more bus companies and airlines to their stable this year.
They are also eyeing the lucrative events ticketing market with a view to pioneering m-ticketing across the country.
"Our strategy to increase market penetration is to bring on board as many merchants as possible, revamp the system to increase functionalities by introducing other functions in the m-shop system," said the trio.
Increasingly, bus companies have embraced mobile payment solutions. It could be a matter of time before the dreadful experiences of queuing, pushing and shoving synonymous with Kenyan last minute travellers becomes a thing of the past.
The ticket will just be a mobile phone away.
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