With safety and security being top of mind for all South Africans, smartphones are a way to provide easy access to critical services. This makes them a great tool in creating a safer South Africa – leading to a mutually beneficial partnership between South Africa’s top downloaded and used personal safety app, Namola and HUAWEI.
The app was integrated with the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem, using the HUAWEI integration kits. The kits are the tools that HUAWEI provides to app developers to provide functionality to their mobile apps so that these perform optimally on HUAWEI handsets.
The integration was quick and simple, taking only two days to integrate HMS Core Services, Push Notifications, and Location, and another two days for the HMS Account Kit (allowing HUAWEI users to easily sign up or log in to the app) and the HMS Map Kit.
Explaining why Namola decided to partner with HUAWEI, and integrate with HMS, company CEO, Peter Matthaei says, “Namola users love their HUAWEI devices for their great quality at affordable prices, and the share of Huawei device users of the Namola app is steadily rising. By partnering with HUAWEI, we can tailor the app to provide the best experience for our HUAWEI users. The HUAWEI team has supported Namola every step of the way during this process, with access to the tech support team for any questions and guidance on best practices.”
“HUAWEI has also been guiding and supporting Namola with marketing best practices, helping to create awareness for Namola and ensuring that South Africans can access Namola’s best-in-class safety and protection on-the-go,” he adds.
By integrating with HMS and having a presence in HUAWEI AppGallery, Namola sees two key benefits, which are important to any app developer: audience growth, and user experience. HMS allows Namola’s users to have the best user experience, and ensures that Namola is accessible (and keeps getting better) for its many HUAWEI users.
“Namola’s core strategy is all about growth and awareness. Our partnership with HUAWEI delivers on both in spades. Exposure to lots of new users, and a great experience for our existing users. Namola also strives to be an app of international quality for our local audience, and the technical capabilities of HMS allow us to do that. Quite importantly, too, as Namola grows, we’ll want to expand into other emerging markets, and hence a partnership with HUAWEI, which has a strong presence in emerging markets, allows us to get a ‘head start’ in our longer-term strategy,” comments Namola Founder and Chairman, Craig Rivett.
A move to proactive safety
Having been available in the HUAWEI AppGallery since 2018, and now integrating with HMS, the app allows users to call for assistance in an emergency. This includes private security companies, police, public emergency services, metro law enforcement, fire & rescue, traffic officers and medical personnel. With everyone in a family having a smartphone, family members can help look out for each other and keep each other safe through the app’s location sharing feature. Communities can report and assist each other, and built-in GPS makes it much quicker and easier to get help at the push of a button with the app.
The new Namola 8 update repositions the app significantly. It provides services which can be classified as proactive safety, instead of reactive.
The first key feature that has been completely reworked is the location sharing. It is now easier than ever before for a user to share their location with trusted loved ones so they can keep each other safe. Smart Alerts have also been added, which will notify the user whenever a loved one leaves or arrives safely. If the user thinks a loved one is in trouble based on their location or a Smart Alert, they can now request help on their behalf at the touch of a button. Requesting help in any emergency has also been made easier with the SOS button.
The app update also adds the Safety Newsfeed, where users can view incidents reported by their loved ones, see daily COVID-19 updates, and much more. The Safety Newsfeed also sets the stage for some more exciting features around community safety that Namola will launch in the coming months.
A valuable partnership
Based on their experience, Namola recommends to any other brand considering partnering with HUAWEI, that they should do so, and that a partnership like this is valuable. Craig Rivett concludes, “We can definitely recommend integration with HMS. HUAWEI is creating the third big mobile platform, alongside the Google Android and Apple iOS ecosystems. Unlike other previous attempts to create another app ecosystem, HUAWEI has significant market share. Additionally, HUAWEI is making it super simple for developers to reuse nearly all their existing code for Google Android, with simple changes for a parallel HMS build.”
