The local Microsoft Network (MSN South Africa) has tripled its revenue in the one year since its launch and grown its user base to in excess of one million users to the site on a monthly basis.
The figures are significant when seen in the context of the depressed advertising market in the second half of the last financial year, following the dot-com crash and the overall economic slowdown.
"MSN South Africa is focused on establishing leadership through business performance and is utilising the new financial year to consolidate their position in the market. The portal plans to exceed both revenue and traffic objectives by 181% in the new fiscal, balancing the near term financial performance with longer term customer loyalty," says Ashika Ramgovind, country manager at MSN South Africa.
The Microsoft .Net strategy of anytime, anywhere and on any device comes into play within the MSN Network in the new financial year and MSN South Africa is committed to making it a market reality. Therefore, MSN will become the consumer front-end of Microsoft`s .Net strategy and various MSN products are now closely integrated with Microsoft`s new XP platform.
The products delivered by this growing portal include MSN Hotmail, Messenger, Communities and Chat. The global Hotmail user base exceeded 104 million in May 2001 and MSN South Africa has in the region of 480 000 of that total. Messenger has grown to 45 000 new users per month and regular live audio and video streaming across the site, including well known bands such as Depeche Mode and Shaggy, ensures that users return to the site at least twice a day.
The MSN.co.za `Around the World` competition launched in April saw over 40 000 participants over a three month period, this figure excludes return entrants. The first three weeks saw 25 000 entrants of which 83 percent were unique users. Winners stood in line to win a grand prize of a trip around the world with R20 000 spending money. To maintain interest, MSN also gave-away weekly prizes totalling R320 000, ensuring that users returned to the site and which also served to strengthen the MSN South Africa brand.
The company launched MSN MediaCentre for the advertising trade market in April 2001. This is a tool designed to educate advertisers and to assist them in the development of online campaigns. Simultaneously MSN.co.za launched a trade competition whereby the creative director and copy writer of an advertising agency could win a trip to New York on the strength and performance of their online advert.
"With the easily identifiable butterfly, this portal has a strong brand and is one of the only Web properties with an icon and a clear market direction heading into the new financial year. MSN South Africa is committed to building a strong relationship with their customer base and with differentiating themselves from the competition," concludes Ramgovind.
MSN is the largest worldwide consumer network in history and is increasing its reach globally to over 250 million users each month.
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