Abeg Grows From 20,000 To 1.8m Users After BBNaija ‘Shine Ya Eye’ Sponsorship

The headline sponsor of Big Brother Naija Season 6, Abeg Technologies, saw users of its Abeg app soar by 7000% following its sponsorship of the reality TV show, which ended on Sunday, October 3, 2021.

The growth of the Abeg app, which offers users the flexibility to receive and send money using cash transfers, exploded after it was announced headline sponsor of BBNaija in July 2020.

The growth is expected to continue due to its association with the reality TV show.

According to Patricia Adoga, the COO of Abeg Technologies, the popularity of the BBNaija show, adjudged the biggest reality TV in Africa, rubbed off on its business as users of the Abeg app rose from 20,000 before BBNaija season 6 to 1.8 million users during the show.

Adoga revealed this during the prize presentation to the BBNaija season 6 winner, Hazel ‘Whitemoney’ Onou, on Monday, October 4, 2021.

“The partnership has been very fruitful for us and a great way to expose the Abeg brand to the public. We are definitely looking forward to partnering with BBNaija again in the coming years,” Adoga said.

Abeg, which is similar to Cashapp, a mobile payment service in the US and UK, was founded by three young Nigerians, Muheez Akanni, Michael Okoh, and Dare Adekoya.

The peer-to-peer (P2P) social payments platform lets users send or request money from another Abeg user without inputting any bank details.

All that is needed to carry out a transaction is the Abeg tag.

Despite its promise to change how regular people think about payment technology, Abeg had much lower popularity among the young generation until it became the headline sponsor of the BBNaija show.

Its partnership with BBNaija became a huge boost for the fintech platform, and figures of users released by the company confirm that there are more beneficiaries from the show than the contestants.

The crew members, brands, small and medium-sized businesses, online vendors and entertainers who perform at the eviction shows and grand finale are also huge beneficiaries of the BBNaija show.

Whenever a new season of the show begins, it sparks non-stop online conversations around the housemates and happenings in the house.

Data released by ID Africa, a media and technology company, in October 2021 revealed that the show had over one billion in audience impressions on Monday, September 27, 2021, a day after the Sunday live eviction show with over 240,000 posts from audiences across Africa and around the world.

The intense popularity of the show has made it a win-win for everyone involved as organisers, sponsors, and advertisers get massive returns on investment, and Abeg Technologies is the latest beneficiary.