Who still uses Binu? 350k Zimbabweans! Is it still the cheapest way to stay informed?

We recently received some impressive statistics from Binu giving us some interesting perspective of how the popular ecosystem/application is doing in Zimbabwe.

What is Binu?

Binu is a mobile software platform that enables almost all types of mobile phones to access Internet applications and services running in the cloud with near instant response times, even on slower or congested 2G (GPRS / EDGE) networks.

What does Binu offer?

Within the Binu application, there is a whole ecosystem that opens its user to a variety of in-app applications. The user rarely needs to leave the application which provides access to your social media accounts, local news updates, sports updates, Educational tools and references (google scholar, Wikipedia etc), free e-books and weather updates. 

Why is it so popular?

Binu is cheap. It is probably the cheapest all-in-one application on the market. The application compresses images and text to the point where its data efficiency appeals to users in 3rd world countries.

Also, Binu works on almost all Symbian and android devices. Entry level, mid-range, and top-end devices are all compatible with Binu and it’s easy to use interface.

So what are the stats in Zimbabwe?

According to Binu, it has over 350k active users per month with 85% being Android devices.

The application records 465 million page views per month (across all its in-house apps) with each user averaging 1331 page views.

With over 59k downloads in Zimbabwe, these figures seem to be justifiable. Most of its users obtained the application via Bluetooth transfer (30,2%), from its website (26,7%) and from Google Play Store (17,9%)

Other interesting stats include:

• Each user averages 21 mins on Binu per day
• Each user averages 639 mins on Binu per month
• Each user averages 10 mb of usage per month
• And Binu records an average of 7k users per day

Interesting that Zimbabweans utilize Bluetooth as their primary mode of accessing such a popular app. Nowadays, people bypass the data hungry app stores and share applications via Bluetooth apps like Share It and over WhatsApp. 

Binu has also opened itself up to individuals and companies who may want to conduct research or run market surveys. It’s a powerful tool considering it has 350k active users which give a large and diverse pool to collect data.

However, Binu faces stiff competition from mobile browsers like Opera Mini who compress data and allow its users the ability to tweak its settings for optimal data efficiency. When Binu was zero rated its uptake was phenomenal, then when Opera Mini came in as a bundled product we assumed many users switched over to the browser but these figures suggest otherwise indicating that Binu is benefitted from the zero rated time period and continues to go strong in Zimbabwe.

So tell us what you think of the stats Binu has given us? Is it still this popular and is Opera Mini a better option on your mobile device?

You can download and try Binu from the Play Store.