Zapper has been given a pair of awards, making it the second consecutive year a mobile payments app has been recognised at the MTN App of the Year awards after Snapscan took top prize last year.
Zapper, which adds quick response codes to restaurant bills to allow payment by smartphone, was deemed best app for the Microsoft platform and given the people's choice award at the MTN App of the Year awards last week.
The app started rolling out to South African restaurants last month, following a successful pilot phase. International rollout and plans for expansion across different verticals are in the pipeline.
Zap Group - the app's local developer - positions it as faster than using a credit card, and more secure.
Word of mouth
Derek Wiggill, GM of Zapper in SA, says Zapper was not designed to replace existing payment methods, but rather to "deliver a better, faster, safer and easier way of paying".
Wiggill says too many apps live in a parallel universe and have little practical application in the real world. "We considered the complete value chain that surrounds paying a bill in a restaurant, then made it easier. We also made it cool, so people want to share how they paid for their meal. That's led to a very rapid adoption of Zapper among restaurant-goers."
He says the Zapper app is initially offered on the Microsoft platform because there is less "noise" in its app store. "In the iStore and Google Play stores, you have to be noticed among hundreds of thousands of apps, [which is] very difficult to do. Additionally, Microsoft as a mobile phone platform is the fastest growing in the segment, and it allows us to offer the same Zapper user experience to a community of users who are keen to adopt new ways of doing things."
Rapid expansion
The success of any app, says Wiggill, depends to an extent on social engineering. "Understand what people like and what they are likely to share with friends and talk about on social media. It also depends on doing something so much better that people actually want to use the app, rather than trying it once or twice and uninstalling it because it doesn't fit in with the real world."
Zapper's headcount at its South African headquarters has increased from 18 to over 100 in under three months. Zapper is also building a presence in Europe and the US. It recently launched in Australia and the Zap Group says it is now eyeing Asian markets.
Live Inspect, an app that assists short-term insurers in performing inspections on vehicles, took the title of MTN App of the Year this year. The app allows insurers to capture and report on details of a vehicle presented for inspection, including its physical condition.
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