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Building a custom app can boost your brand's trust and credibility, ultimately benefiting your business in the long run. We will discuss the following topics:
1. Reputation Management
2. Customer Support and Engagement
3. Data-Driven Decision Making
4. Demonstrating Social Responsibility
A well-made custom app can dramatically improve your brand's marketability and reputation. A trustworthy app will show that you are dedicated to providing top-notch goods and services. As a result of knowing they can rely on you, your clients and business partners will have more faith in you.
A custom app also strengthens your brand identification by demonstrating your professionalism and attention to detail.
A custom app enables you to offer personalized customer support and engagement, helping you address the unique needs and pain points of your African target market.
By incorporating in-app support features, such as chatbots, help centres, or direct communication channels, you can provide timely assistance to your users, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.
This level of support also encourages users to share their positive experiences with others, further boosting your brand's credibility.
You may get useful user data through custom app creation, giving you insights into user behavior and preferences. You may improve your app and broader business strategy by studying this data and making wise decisions.
Delivering a more individualized experience for your users is made possible by a data-driven strategy. This helps to increase their faith in your brand and ultimately ensures that they will stay visiting.
Putting money into a customized app that caters to your target market's needs demonstrates your commitment to social responsibility.
You can showcase your brand's dedication to having a beneficial influence by developing an app that takes into account regional difficulties, environmental issues, or social issues that are pertinent to your audience.
This thoughtful approach to app creation not only strengthens the integrity of your brand, but it also appeals to customers who value companies with a clear sense of mission.
World-class app development that allows you to start, run and grow your business.
Imagine custom app development as an expert chef crafting a personalised menu for their restaurant. Just as a meticulously planned and executed meal can leave diners with a memorable culinary experience, a custom app is specifically designed to cater to your business's distinct needs and objectives, leaving a lasting impression on your users.
Investing in custom app development offers several advantages, including:
A custom app allows you to create an interface that is tailored to your target audience, ensuring a seamless and enjoyable experience. By focusing on the preferences and expectations of your users, you can craft an app that not only meets their needs but also delights them with personalized features and intuitive navigation.The best part? If you develop an app that your users love, you ensure that they keep coming back for more and turn them into lifelong customers.
Custom apps can be designed to streamline business processes and boost productivity. By automating repetitive tasks, integrating with existing systems, and providing real-time data access, custom apps empower your team to work more efficiently and make informed decisions quickly, just like a well-tailored suit that enables effortless movement and comfort.
A unique app helps you stand out from the competition and attract more customers. In a world where off-the-shelf solutions are abundant, a custom mobile app acts as a distinctive and exclusive suit that sets you apart in the crowd, showcasing your brand's personality and commitment to providing a superior experience.
A well-designed app can generate increased revenue and improve customer retention. By offering a memorable and engaging user experience, your custom app encourages users to continue using your services and make purchases. It's akin to wearing a sharp, tailored suit that not only grabs attention but also instils trust and confidence in your brand, ultimately resulting in increased profitability.
Custom app development enables seamless integration with your existing systems and third-party applications. This ensures a smooth flow of data between various platforms, enhancing communication and collaboration within your organization. The ability to integrate effortlessly is like having a versatile tool that easily connects and works in harmony with other components in your business ecosystem.
As your business evolves, a custom app can be easily modified or expanded to accommodate changing requirements and market trends. This adaptability is like having a dynamic strategy that can be adjusted and fine-tuned to suit your business's changing needs, ensuring continued relevance and success in an ever-changing environment.The benefits don’t just stop there though. If you want to build trust and credibility with your customers, a custom app is a great way to do so.
Investing in custom app development can be expensive, but being open to pivoting and iterating based on market feedback is crucial to ensure long-term success. By adapting your app to the ever-changing needs and preferences of your target market, you can stay ahead of the competition, increase user satisfaction, and maximize your return on investment.
Encourage users to provide feedback and reviews, which will help you identify pain points and areas for improvement. By addressing these concerns, you demonstrate your commitment to serving the unique needs of your users, enhancing your app's credibility and increasing user satisfaction. Tools like in-app surveys, app store reviews, or social media can be used to gather feedback and gauge user sentiment.
Analyze user behaviour and engagement data to understand how your app is being used and identify potential bottlenecks or areas of friction. By making data-driven decisions, you can prioritize improvements and new features that will resonate with your audience, maximizing the impact of your development budget and efforts.
As you adapt your app based on market feedback, be prepared to allocate resources for ongoing updates and improvements. While this may increase your app's overall cost, the benefits include increased user satisfaction, reduced churn, and ultimately, higher long-term profitability. Regular updates also demonstrate your commitment to delivering a high-quality app experience tailored to your users' needs.
Adopt a flexible, agile development methodology that enables prompt iteration and change in response to market feedback.
Your app will stay relevant and helpful to your target market if you are receptive to user needs and can swiftly pivot and make adjustments.
By prioritizing products and enhancements that have the greatest impact, an agile methodology can also assist you in managing development expenses more successfully.
While it's essential to iterate and adapt your app based on user feedback, it's also crucial to balance this with innovation and forward-thinking. Continuously explore new technologies, trends, and market opportunities to ensure your app stays ahead of the curve and caters to the evolving needs of your user base. By striking the right balance between adaptation and innovation, you can maintain a competitive edge and secure long-term success for your app.
Creating an outstanding user experience and design is crucial for a successful app. A well-designed app should be visually appealing, intuitive, and user-friendly.
Higher app adoption rates and greater client retention result from spending money on excellent design and user experience. A well-designed app has a higher likelihood of being passed along by users and being used again, which leads to better ratings, word-of-mouth advertising, and long-term success.
In today's interconnected digital world, app security is paramount. We take a look at some vital security considerations.
The Privacy Act of 1974 is the primary privacy regulation in America that regulates the sharing of data. The Privacy Act governs how federal agencies may gather, utilize, and disclose personal information. Individuals are given specific rights under it, including the ability to access and update their personal information, and federal agencies are required to protect such data from illegal disclosure.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for health information, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) for financial information, and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) for children's online data are just a few federal laws that deal with privacy and data sharing in addition to the Privacy Act. Additionally, each state has its own privacy laws that could offer additional protections.
Keep up with the latest security threats and best practices, such as incorporating multi-factor authentication, securing APIs, and using secure coding practices. Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments can help identify potential weaknesses and protect your app from emerging threats.
Select a reputable development partner with a proven track record in security best practices, like Scrums. A reliable vendor will prioritize security throughout the development process and help you build a secure app that meets industry standards and best practices.
Scrums.com provides high quality engineering teams to scaling enterprises at lower costs. Scrums.com designs, builds, deploys and maintains custom software that gives scale-ups the opportunity to grow world-class businesses.
Scrums.com provides high quality engineering teams to scaling enterprises at lower costs. Scrums.com designs, builds, deploys and maintains custom software that gives scale-ups the opportunity to grow world-class businesses.
Quality user stories into production rate
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Successful projects delivered
Years of software specialisation
Creating an app like News24 specifically for African markets opens up numerous opportunities and presents unique challenges. Africa’s digital landscape is rapidly growing, with increasing internet access, mobile adoption, and a young, tech-savvy population heavily relying on smartphones. Countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are emerging as tech hubs, leading the continent in digital adoption and innovation. However, developing an app for African users involves navigating complex infrastructure, connectivity constraints, and high data costs distinct from markets in North America or Europe.
In Africa, many users access the internet solely through mobile devices, often using low-cost smartphones with limited processing power. These users need more connectivity and typically purchase small data bundles due to high costs, especially in rural areas. For an app like News24 to succeed, developers must prioritize mobile-first design, optimize for low data usage, and offer offline access when connectivity is limited. Additionally, integrating local payment methods, such as M-Pesa or Airtel Money, is critical to accommodate the continent’s reliance on mobile wallets.
To address these needs, development costs must account for data efficiency, simple UX/UI design, and regional compatibility. Moreover, compliance with local regulations, such as South Africa’s POPIA, adds another layer of complexity. Understanding and preparing for these unique requirements is essential for building an app that functions well, resonates with African users, and meets the continent’s diverse digital needs.
Understanding platform and device compatibility is essential for those considering how much it costs to build an app like News24 for the African market. Android dominates Africa's primary operating system, with more than 80% of users accessing apps through Android devices. Unlike in higher-income markets where users frequently upgrade to the latest devices, many African users hold on to low-cost or earlier versions of Android smartphones. Consequently, custom app development for the African continent requires careful compatibility across a range of older Android versions and hardware capabilities.
It is crucial to optimize the app to perform well on a variety of devices—from basic smartphones common in Nigeria to more sophisticated models in South Africa. This means reducing resource demands, compressing content, and simplifying interface elements to ensure a smooth user experience on lower-spec hardware. Such optimization increases app development costs, requiring additional coding, design, and testing across multiple device types to meet performance standards.
An effective way to approach this challenge is by considering Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), popular in Africa due to their adaptability and lower data consumption. PWAs deliver a near-native experience without users needing to download large apps or commit to regular updates, which can save users' data. For an app like News24, providing a lightweight, data-friendly PWA version can reduce mobile data usage and make the app more accessible to users in low-bandwidth areas.
While PWAs help reduce users' data costs, they add complexity to the development process. The customization, testing, and optimization involved in building a fully functional PWA impact the budget. These factors significantly influence how much it costs to build an app for the African market, especially when balancing performance, compatibility, and data efficiency with the needs of diverse user bases across the continent.
In the African market, basic app functionality should be designed with data limitations and offline access in mind. Features like offline content storage are crucial for news apps, allowing users to read news articles even when they’re offline or have limited connectivity. This feature can be achieved by enabling users to save articles or download daily news summaries. While this improves accessibility, offline functionality adds to development costs, requiring additional backend support to manage data caching and syncing when connectivity is restored.
Building an app optimized for low-cost devices is vital in Africa. Most African users rely on affordable smartphones with limited processing power, lower memory, and smaller storage capacity. For this reason, features that are “heavy” on resources, such as complex animations or background processing, should be minimized or omitted. Instead, resource-efficient design practices—such as image compression, content caching, and streamlined user interfaces—can enhance performance on low-cost devices. Ensuring compatibility with different screen sizes and hardware limitations is another aspect that increases development time and costs.
Advanced features, such as mobile payment integrations with providers like M-Pesa and Airtel Money, are essential for apps offering premium content or subscription models. In Kenya and other countries, mobile money is more prevalent than traditional banking, so integrating these services can significantly expand the app’s potential user base. However, implementing these services involves extensive customization, regulatory compliance, and rigorous testing across various networks—all of which contribute to the cost of app development. SMS-based payments and USSD integrations also provide users with limited internet access, further adding complexity and cost to the project.
UX/UI design for African audiences must prioritize simplicity and speed to account for connectivity challenges. In many African countries, internet speeds can be inconsistent, and mobile data is costly. Therefore, a data-efficient design ensures that users can access news content affordably and reliably.
Optimizing load times is critical for an app like News24. Large images, autoplay videos, and excessive animations should be avoided or replaced with static, compressed images and text-based layouts that load quickly. Progressive loading, where images and videos are downloaded as needed, is particularly effective for African markets. This technique allows users to consume content incrementally, reducing overall data usage.
To further enhance user experience, developers should consider color schemes, text readability, and touch-friendly navigation. A simple, intuitive layout can improve usability since many users may need more app experience. In countries like Ghana and South Africa, where smartphone usage is widespread, optimizing the app for one-handed operation and limited-screen real estate can significantly improve the user experience. These considerations enhance accessibility but require additional design work, increasing costs.
Integrating third-party services is essential for creating an app that aligns with African users' needs and expectations. For a News24-style app, this involves integrating local payment gateways like M-Pesa, Airtel Money, or other solutions that support mobile wallets. Such payment methods are widely used across Africa, making it easier for users to subscribe to premium content or pay for ad-free versions of the app.
Developing seamless integration with these payment systems involves more than coding; it requires collaboration with payment providers and extensive testing to ensure compatibility across various devices and networks. Additionally, SMS-based features and USSD-based functionalities are standard in African FinTech apps. These services allow users in regions with low internet connectivity to access app functionalities through SMS notifications or commands. While these integrations broaden the app’s accessibility, they add to the development time, licensing costs, and testing requirements.
Due to connectivity limitations across Africa, the backend infrastructure for an app like News24 must accommodate offline access and low bandwidth. Apps that deliver real-time news updates require databases capable of handling intermittent connections and offline storage. Implementing backend systems that sync data once the device regains connectivity helps users access content without delay.
With their regional data centers in Africa, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure offer reliable solutions that improve app performance in areas with patchy internet. These cloud services support load balancing, which is essential for handling high-user traffic and reducing latency. Cloud storage solutions also support data caching, ensuring that users can access previously loaded articles offline. The trade-off is that cloud services come with ongoing costs, which can be substantial when scaling the app for a large user base.
Maintenance for an app like News24 requires a specialized approach. Africa’s infrastructure challenges—such as power outages and limited internet availability—mean that regular updates must be lightweight and capable of downloading over slow connections. Significant updates that require continuous connectivity risk alienating users who cannot complete downloads due to network issues.
Furthermore, updates should be compatible with various devices, especially older models. Continuous testing across different devices and network environments ensures that the app remains accessible to users from both urban and rural areas. Maintenance costs also include monitoring third-party services, such as payment gateways, to ensure smooth and reliable integration. Developers can ensure sustained user engagement across African markets by prioritizing lightweight updates and data-efficient maintenance practices.
Hiring a team familiar with Africa-specific challenges can be invaluable in optimizing app development. The rise of tech ecosystems in Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town means African developers have experience in mobile-first design, low-data application architecture, and local payment integrations. These developers understand the nuances of building for African audiences and can provide insights that foreign developers may overlook.
Local developers are also more familiar with regional regulatory requirements, cultural preferences, and typical connectivity issues. By working with professionals in Africa’s tech hubs, companies can save time and resources that would otherwise go toward adapting their apps post-launch. While hiring local developers with specialized skills may increase upfront costs, the benefits of app relevance and user adoption can far outweigh the initial expenses.
Data and Connectivity Issues: Many African users rely on data packages with limited bandwidth. Developers must design apps with offline capabilities and low data consumption to minimize user costs. This feature alone can significantly increase development time, requiring caching mechanisms, local storage options, and efficient content syncing.
Mobile Payment Integration: Payment integrations with services like M-Pesa or Airtel Money require additional licensing fees, testing, and API development. Each provider has specific implementation requirements, which add to development and maintenance costs.
Legal and Compliance Costs: African countries are developing data protection laws that mirror global standards. For example, South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) requires apps to protect user data, which involves implementing robust encryption and compliance protocols. These legal considerations increase development complexity and cost, but compliance is essential to avoid regulatory penalties.
Developing a news app like News24 in Africa requires understanding connectivity, payment systems, and user preferences unique to the region. News apps must deliver real-time information without draining users’ data or requiring high-speed connections. Low-bandwidth content delivery and simplified layouts make news accessible to a broader audience, including those in rural areas or with limited internet access.
With the prevalence of mobile wallets in Africa, integrating local payment options expands the app’s accessibility for users who prefer subscription services or ad-free browsing. For a news app targeting African audiences, ensuring data-efficient operation, providing offline content, and supporting popular payment gateways are not just value additions—they are necessities that drive user engagement.
At Scrums.com, we understand the specific demands across African regions, from payment solutions to optimizing apps for low connectivity zones. Let's discuss a custom estimate for your app designed with African users in mind!