The MTN Group, Africa’s largest telecoms provider, announced on Monday it had purchased 144 plots of digital real estate on Metaverse platform Ubuntuland, marking the first time an African firm has purchased digital real estate.
MTN’s virtual land purchase creates a digital village roughly 12 x 12m in size, although the firm did not reveal the cost of the transaction.
Africa’s largest telecommunications firm has not revealed how it will use its digital land, but could use the virtual space for digital showrooms, brand awareness campaigns, or immersive customer outreach.
The news follows similar digital real estate investments from firms such as Nike and Samsung, as well as entrepreneurs like Snoop Dogg and Deadmau5.
Additionally, South African advertising firm M&C Saatchi Abel purchased an unspecified amount of plots to secure Ubuntuland office space.
Mike Abel, Founding Partner and CEO of M&C Saatchi Group South Africa, added,
“It will open our continent up to significant digital and economic growth opportunities for both talent, clients, and industry colleagues to come together to solve business and even societal challenges with creativity”
According to reports, public digital land transactions will open by the third quarter of 2022.
Digital Real-Estate Investments
The news comes after investors broke digital real-estate records in November last year, totalling nearly $5 million in one week in two transactions at $2.43 million on Decentraland and $2.3 million Axie Infinity.
Also, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the world’s Big 4 consultancy firms, purchased digital land on The Sandbox for roughly $10,000. More recently, PwC deployed around 200 virtual reality (VR) headsets in Dubai last week to deliver Metaverse experiences to the Middle East.
They said it wasn’t possible — they were wrong 😎 . In 2 weeks, we procured, set up, and deployed almost 200 enterprise #VirtualReality headsets in Dubai to deliver the first phase of @MContent_‘s #metaverse vision. A global collaboration between @PwC_UK and @PwC_Middle_East 👊 pic.twitter.com/JYLEwAElqK
— Jeremy Dalton (@JeremyDaltonXR) February 27, 2022
About Ubuntuland
Africarare and partners Mann Made Media developed Ubuntuland, South Africa’s first Metaverse. The service launched to popular acclaim, selling out of its non-fungible token (NFT) art last year to secure $50,000 for the Metaverse platform.
NFTs play an integral role in the Ubuntuland ecosystem by encouraging users to monetise and sell digital assets such as art, music, and videos on the platform. The service runs on the Ethereurm blockchain to power its ‘$UBUNTU’ cryptocurrency token, allowing Ubuntuland users to pay and play.
Users and businesses on the Ubuntuland platform can host digital showrooms, shops, wellness rooms, concert stages, film festival spaces, and more across the platforms 204,642 plots of digital land.
Ubuntuland continues to grow and, later this year, it plans to introduce avatars, a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO), and blockchain-based ‘play-to-earn’ immersive gaming experiences.
