Rise of mod apps in Sub-Saharan Africa

Studies conducted in Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria on 230 million app sessions from more than 21 000 apps and 4 000 panellists by Caribou Data shows that mod apps, whatsapp clones – such as GBwhatsapp and FMwhatsapp – are becoming more popular in Sub-Saharan Africa due to their additional functionalities. GBwhatsapp, has 5% of total sessions per user, compared to Facebook which has 3%, and is the sixth app in terms of usage.

Bryan Pon, co-founder of Caribou Data, said however that there is no safety assurance with these applications, since they are not to be found in the Google Play store, thus exposing the users to malware.