
Phone ownership has exploded across Africa in recent years. Today, more than 75% of East African citizens own a phone. However, most of these are simple feature phones primarily used for texting and cannot access online information resources. Additionally, most EAC citizens have experience with SMS menus in products such as Mpesa or mobile top-up services. Sauti innovates on the ubiquity of East Africa’s mobile traction to provide an SMS-based market and trade platform to citizens across East Africa.
The Sauti Trade and Market Information platform provides official, simplified, and real-time trade procedures, market prices, and exchange rates.
Sauti’s trade and information platform syncs information provided by our partners to provide traders with the most up-to-date and official information available. Sauti staff verify all our information, simplify the language, and translate it to increase its accessibility by all East African citizens. Our technology has unprecedented potential for scale, relative to other information channels, and the relatively low fixed costs of running the platform has translated into sustainability benefits for cross-border traders that have integrated the platform into their business!
“With Sauti now, at the comfort of my couch or kitchen, I can get all the business and customs information I need right in my cheap old phone. I’m now more confident to pass through the gazetted route and not scared of personally clearing my goods.”
Middy Amule, Cross-Border Trader, Busia, Uganda
“Sauti is like a secret partner in my business – it’s there to give me information before I go to the market and help me estimate my profit. Before I even leave my house I know the price of groundnuts in Gulu and Lira, the current exchange rate and the amount of tax I will pay”
Edna Mudibo, Cross-Border Trader, Busia, Kenya