Whatever happened to Africa’s magical Metaverse?

In Africa, while some remain bullish about the Metaverse as a marketing tool, others have left the fold. 

Hussein Hashish, who was at one stage Chief Metaverse Officer at Athens DAO, a community of crypto investors, has since founded Likwid, a blockchain-powered platform that helps businesses launch customised, branded loyalty programmes.  

Cairo-based Hashish says he has not used his mixed-reality (MR) headset for a year. “I’m one of many people who haven’t bought into the idea of having a headset strapped to their head for hours at a time to consume content,” he points out. “Also, the Metaverse was supposed to hold the key to the future of remote work, but that hasn’t really happened.”  

Hashish says the latest trend is to embed anything to do with AI in existing products and applications, which makes life so much easier for non-tech people, allowing them to build apps without having to hire developers or subject-matter experts”. 

Metaverse landscape is evolving slowly 

For African marketers, it’s important to understand that the Metaverse landscape is evolving slowly, emphasises Hashish.  

“I’m keeping an eye on Metaverse trends, but I’m currently more focused on using AI tools to help me scale my business,” he says. “I think it’s too soon to capitalise on the Metaverse, which is still going to evolve. In the meantime, I’m going to watch where young customers are going.”  

In Africa, this may mean finding them on their mobile phones, rather than expensive imported headsets. Meta is hoping to offer access to the Metaverse through smartphone apps, and its 2Africa submarine internet cable could help to reduce costs and improve connectivity on the continent, but this will take time. 

Find out about the Metaverse in Africa, and much more, in the new issue (Issue 3 2024) of Strategic Marketing for Africa – the voice of African marketing and the official publication of the African Marketing Confederation (AMC). Read the Digital Edition online here.   

A Print Edition of the magazine is also available.