Mobile app developers in Nigeria have missed out on the $20billion dollars raked in from applications on the Apple app store in 2016.
Experts say this is because local developers have refused to expand, improve and grow with market demands, as most Nigerian- built apps are built for specific platforms such as Android or Windows, are rarely updated, targeted only at the Nigerian audience and are not popular.
A mobile app is a software application designed to run on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Apps that are not pre-installed on devices are usually available through distribution platforms called app stores by different mobile operating systems such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, and BlackBerry App World.
With app developers earning 50 to70 percent of retail price via the app store platforms of Apple, Windows, Google, Blackberry, Nokia and others, incubating young genuine developers could have significant multiplier effect domestically.
Global mobile app store revenues are projected to surpass $90 billion by 2018, primarily driven by growth of mobile subscriber base, strong mobile broadband penetration and rising sales of smartphones. This is the more reason why Nigerian developers should channel apps to the global market so that huge revenues would be gotten from that source.
“We have amazingly talented web and mobile app developers and gamers in Nigeria but there’s nothing encouraging them to do more. Go to Yaba, you will find so many young tech enthusiasts there, developing different apps, programming, coding and doing all sorts, but when these apps are developed and are not accepted by Nigerians, there is no gain for them and there is no encouragement to make the app better by upgrading them,” Subomi Sodipo, CEO, CF Mobile told BusinessDay.
Sodipo added that a lot of the gaming apps, which are featured on the Google play store, are left there for years without updating or upgrading because of low downloads.
CNBC recently reported that the biggest earners in Apple App Store’s $20billion payout included games such as ‘Pokemon Go,’ which was the most downloaded app in 2016, ‘Super Mario,’ which was the most downloaded app on Christmas and New Year’s days, and subscription based apps, such as Netflix, Hulu and Time Warner’s HBO GO.
BusinessDay findings show that Nigerian developed gaming mobile applications such as Ole2, Jagun, developed by Kuluya Games and even AfroTalez which won the Best Entertainment App at the MTN Developer Contest and was a finalist at Mobile West Africa, have not been updated since 2014.
Valentine Rush, a Nigerian game app developed in 2014 and featured on the Google play store is no longer functioning.
Industry analysts say this is disheartening, even as entertainment apps have grabbed three quarters of Nigeria’s smartphone user market.
“We have developed a lot of entertainment and game apps in Nigeria, but there is no way for us to know how many we have because not much attention is paid to the apps market. In fact, how many of the developed apps are currently functioning? Not a lot. “The only Nigerian apps that are doing well are banking apps, news and religious apps,” Wale Yusuf, Co-Founder, Techpoint, told BusinessDay in a telephone interview.
A study among Nigerian telecommunications consumers carried out by Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) in association with Etisalat Nigeria, identifies entertainment, games, social media, video and music as the biggest drivers for the increase in mobile data spending and a third of Nigerian mobile media users have paid to increase their data packages in the last six months, in order to access these services.
Analysts say rising smartphone, tablet and wearable device ownership, due to lower costs of devices and significant improvement in broadband internet services, should drive the growth of mobile applications in emerging markets such as Nigeria and open up a wider and more eager audience for app developers.
However, Nigerian developed entertainment apps, although featured, are not popular on any apps store including Aptoid, Google play store, Ios, Blackberry and Windows.
Contributing his views on apps developed by Nigerians and in Nigeria, on Radar, an online forum where the African tech community can discuss, Bisong, a mobile video game developer said; “I have spent the last six months working on a multiplayer game that I plan to release exclusively in Nigeria for starters, but I am not encouraged by what I see from the Top Grossing games on the Ios and Android app stores in Nigeria.”
“In China, the top five grossing game are locally made Chinese games, same in Japan, but in Nigeria, not a single Nigerian- made game is even close to the top 200. Instead, games like Candy Crush, Subway Surfer and Temple Run are dominating our chart,” Bisong added.
The growth of information technology is creating an expanding ecospace which provides opportunity for thousands of young tech-savvy entrepreneurs to establish start-ups and render harware and software services with little or no overheads and earn middle-class incomes or higher.
This trend has the potential to ease the burden of unemployment and under-employment which particularly plagues developing nations.
Olusola Teniola, President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said that Nigeria still has unexploited talent in the technology space and it would be nice to see more attention and investment in the tech space.
“I have always advocated for the growth of technology and exportation of Nigeria’s talent. It would be nice for us to grow our own silicon valley in Yaba, encourage our developers enough to attract global audience,” he said.
Jumoke Akiyode
