Lithuanian mobile startup MoboFree has crossed the line of 2 million registered users (Update – March 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link).
MoboFree allows for mobile web users to find a new friend or a date, as well as become informed about relationship and health topics at the same time via their mobile phone. The project is oriented towards African users and provides a large data basis of video lessons where users can find info about different practical issues, ranging from how to prevent HIV or how to prepare a attractive CV. Users can learn about topics taught in schools, for example lessons of foreign languages.
MoboFree attracts visitors from all over the world, but the largest customer base is from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Because of economic and social reasons more than 80% of the population in these countries reaches the internet only through mobile phones. Mobile internet usage in Africa is growing dramatically each year, as mobile phone is often the only way to discover news and communicate with others.
MoboFree’s developers admitted that the first steps of the project were very difficult. It was not easy to understand the needs and cultural differences of users living on the other side of the world. Competition was very tight as the main competitors were projects with big teams and millions of investment funds. “For 1.5 years we have worked very hard, but now we are happy to be a live example that success can be achieved with only 3 people in the team, even in the absence of any external financial support,” said the project representatives.
Currently more than 10,000 new users join project every day. MoboFree’s fan page on the social networking Facebook has more than 170,000 fans. The project receives at least 300,000 unique users every day. In the near future, the team intends to develop more selected countries, and work on its smart phone apple development. It is expected that by the end of the year, MoboFree will have 5 million registered users.
By the way: You can find out about other interesting startups from Lithuania in this list.
I work for MoboFree.com – emotions based mobile social network. MoboFree has a lot of usual features, like dating, downloads, chat, forum, contests with prizes. But also it has very specific and unique emotions-related features.And of course, project is totally free for users.