Main trends
The adoption of mobile connectivity in the Central African Republic is increasing thanks to mobile applications from social networks and instant messaging. According to a 2017 World Bank report on the AFCW3 Economic Sheet, the most widely used mobile applications in the country are Facebook Messenger, far ahead of WhatsApp and Skype. However, applications such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Google, and Opera Mobile are also widely used.
Yet, due to some persistent rumours circulating in the country about the hacking of Facebook Messenger accounts by the authorities, since 2018, more and more people have been turning to WhatsApp.
Unlike other African countries, access to financial services through mobile money remains very limited in the CAR. This payment method for transferring money from a mobile phone, arrived in the country in 2016 through Orange Money, with approval of the Central Bank, but has not yet been successful due to the general commitment to cash payment.
Other applications have been created locally, but their use remains almost non-existent. This is the case with the Ketté-Gala application, a digital market platform for ordering and express delivery and the Banguiwood TV application for sharing online videos on demand.
In addition to these mobile applications, the news and music app developed by Radio France Internationale (RFI) and the one created by Radio Ndeke Luka, are very popular but there is no statistical data on the rate of downloads at national level. This may be explained by the constant search for information on the country by Central Africans.