As big as the United States economy is, the country spends less than $100 million importing software, and it makes much more than $500 billion exporting software. Nigeria with its small economy, spends as much as $2 billion importing software; about 80 percent of which already exist, developed locally.
Although these softwares have been designed and built in country, local software receives very little to no attention in terms of acceptance and patronage.
In 2013, when the Nigerian mobile app market was valued at $1 billion at the mobile app summit, James Rutherford of Nokia Corporation said; “the sub-$100 Smartphone is steadily becoming a reality globally. Low end Smartphones are increasingly available and these types of mobile phone will likely grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15 percent over the coming years.”
This forecast became even more evident in reports by GFK retail and technology Nigeria which listed Nigeria as the third highest tech device growth market globally in 2015, with a 13 percent growth between 2014 and 2015. According to the report, sales of technology devices rose from $5.1 billion in 2014 to $5.7 billion in 2015. Gaming apps have so far spurred the rapid growth of mobile software applications, as Nigeria’s app based mobile gaming market was in 2018 valued at $21 million (US) and is estimated to be worth $53 million (US) by 22, according to Statista.com, an online research tool.
With app developers earning 50-70 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, as more and more technology inclined youths look to app development and software programming .
Global mobile app store revenues are projected to reach $189 billion by 2020, primarily driven by growth of mobile subscriber base, strong mobile broadband penetration and rising sales of Smartphones. Hence, Industry experts say that the untapped potentials of promoting local content through acceptance of software, could bring billions of dollars into the country’s purse and in-turn transform the economy for good.
“Many organisations including the government are still depending heavily on foreign software. It is 100 percent correct that the market is shrinking because of lack of support. We have a major problem trying to push out products into the country, just like every other product in every other sector. Nigerians including government agencies do not have any kind of acceptance for local products for several reasons,” Abiodun Atobatele, Chief Executive Officer of ATB Techsoft solutions told BusinessDay in an interview.
Atobatele said Nigeria’s software industry can grow into a $100billion industry in about a decade if we first embrace our solutions, because there is so much money in technology, 20-30 times much more than what we make now on oil; “and we still spend ridiculous amounts of money importing software solutions. Nigerian companies, especially banks pay for Indian banking applications.”
According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), a trade association of Indian Information Technology and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, India’s IT sector aggregated revenues of $147 billion in 2015, where export revenue stood at $99billion and domestic at $48billion, growing by over 13 percent since 1998.
NASSCOM estimates, the total software and services export industry was estimated to be US$31.3 billion and software products and engineering services accounted for export revenues of US$4.9 billion.
Online reports also show that its software exports continuously register double digit annual growth and generate 2.5 million direct employments.
Olorugun James Emadoye, the President of Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) called on Nigerian government and business owners to quit importing software that is either available in the country or can be easily developed by the many mobile, resourceful and technology savvy youths in Nigeria.
“Existing records show that 350,000 students are currently studying Computer Science and active in 225 chapters of NACOSS (Nigeria Association of Computer Science Students) in over 100 Universities and Polytechnics (source NACOSS), without hope to secure employment.”
“It must be clearly stated that when you buy application software from another country, you are providing jobs for people in that country and denying jobs for Nigerian youths, especially those studying Computer Science in Nigeria,” Emadoye said.
ICT ranks as one of the country’s major contributor to its GDP with about 11 percent. However, industry players continue to worry that its growth has not yet translated into jobs and wealth for the nation, giving the simple reason that indigenous companies either lack the capacity or the opportunity to leverage this growth potential to participate significantly at many levels of the ICT value chain.
Stakeholders see the need for government to begin to look in the direction of indigenous players in the technology industry by implementing the local content policy.
Chijioke Anthony Eke, Co-founder and Chairman, Sidmach Technologies told BusinessDay in an interview that; “All we need in Nigeria’s ICT industry right now is policy direction. With that, something positive will clearly emerge in the next few years and those indigenous companies that can add value are those that will remain.”
“Our collective responsibility is to kick start this development. Most people have smart phones and smart devices but none is made in Nigeria, how many are even made in Africa.
JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON
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