Nigeria’s mobile internet market to worth $166bn in 2020          

With rapid improvement to telecom infrastructure and the availability of affordable cloud applications, mobile internet applications are rapidly transforming the way Nigerians do business, as the technology is empowering enterprises to be more flexible, responsive and efficient than ever before.

The Nigerian ministry of science and technology forecasts that the country’s mobile market will be worth $166 billion in 2020, and directly employ about 2.7 million people.

Statistics from Ericsson Mobility Report show that total mobile subscription penetration in sub-Saharan Africa is about 80 percent, but will grow to 100 percent with 1 billion mobile subscriptions by 2021.

Nigeria, one of the largest mobile markets and most populous country in Africa, is leading the trend based on these results, the report says.

According to Magnus Nmonwu, regional director for Sage West Africa, Nigeria is adopting the mobile internet as quickly and enthusiastically as it did to mobile voice services some years ago.

Sage, which began as a small business in the UK 30 years ago, is now a market leader for integrated accounting, payroll and payment systems. With over 13000 colleagues, the company says it supports millions of entrepreneurs across 23 countries as they power the global economy.

“In addition to the productivity boom, organisations need to adopt mobile business processes and apps to meet the expectations of employees and customers. Today’s consumer and employee wants to interact with companies using accessible, easy to use mobile services and apps,” Nmonwu said.

According to Nmonwu, “enterprises thus need to start mobile security and device management, so that they can support mobile employees, as today’s consumer wants service on demand from a handset and today’s employee wants to be productive wherever he or she is, at anytime or in any location.”

Mobility is now seen as the growth engine of the Nigerian economy, helping people to enhance their lives and to improve their living standards, while enabling enterprises to transform how they operate.

Facebook statistics show that 7.1 million Nigerians access its platform every day, and that 100 percent of its monthly users do so using a mobile, smart phone.

As a result of this, employees and managers are increasingly able to access information on the road to serve customers, speed up decision-making, and save time.

For instance, a salesperson can now easily check from a tablet or smart phone to find out if a product is in stock while on-site with a customer, and place the order without going to the office. Also, managers can now use their time between meetings and at airports more productively.

Mobile technology is also helping HR departments to become more efficient and to build better relationships with employees. For example, companies can offer employee self-service (ESS) across mobile devices to streamline HR processes and engage with employees more effectively.

With mobile ESS, companies can enable employees to file leave applications, submit doctor’s notes when they are ill, and make expense claims – all from their mobile devices and without needing to do paperwork.

 

YANGE IKYAA