High operating costs may have forced Naspers, the South African media and internet company, to shut down Mocality, its online business directory which has a presence in Kenya and Nigeria. Mocality has said that it will cease to operate at the end of this month as Naspers continues to streamline its operations across Africa.
Valued at around $18-billion, Naspers has significant interests in tech and media properties spread across the world and these include Mail.ru and Tencent. In the six months to the end of September last year, Naspers reported a 70 percent surge in revenue from its online based operations which include South African online retailer Kalahari and online shopping comparison engine, PriceCheck.
Despite expanding its technology investments, Naspers has announced that it is shutting down Mocality amid claims that the company’s investments in the unit were not registering returns.
Mocality says on its website that it is a “business directory designed specifically for the mobile phone,” designed to help users to find whatever they need “without having to look it up in a book or even use a computer”.
Mocality has said in a blog posting on its website that “all good things must come to an end” and provided no details for its decision to shut-down operations. “All of the Mocality Kenya and Mocality Nigeria operations will be closed on the 28th [of] February 2013,” it said.
It adds that business owners need to get all the data that they may require from Mocality’s system as this information will not be available after the shutdown on February 28.
“Please log into the system between now and the 28th to retrieve data that you may require from the system, as the system will no longer be available after the 28th February 2013.”
Mocality said that it will however refund in full “all paid for services”. High costs and failure to quickly break-even may have forced Naspers to discontinue operations of Mocality. The company also added that advertising deals will also be refunded.
“Coupons remain valid until they either expire or are redeemed in full by you at the relevant merchant. However, please log into the system between now and the 28th to retrieve any coupons or information that you may need as Mocality Deals will not be available after the 28th [of] February 2013.”
In January last year, Stefan Magdalinski, the founding CEO of Mocality revealed that internet search engine giant, Google carried out unorthodox business practices taking information from Mocality’s website.
The two companies finally settled the dispute although Google axed Olga Arara-Kimani, Google’s country head in Kenya at the time.
