Nigeria Mobile News
News about Telecoms development in Nigeria
Wednesday 30 January 2008, 7:00 PM
Nigeria GSM operators Jamboree to GSM Awards in Barcelona
GSMA is the global trade association representing more than 690 GSM mobile phone operators across 214 territories and countries of the world. This year’s event comes up February in Barcelona,Spain.
The primary goals of the GSMA are to ensure mobile phones and wireless services work globally and are easily accessible, enhancing their value to individual customers and national economies, while creating new business opportunities for operators.
GSMA's work is focused on two areas,Emerging services and emerging markets. The GSMA helps its members develop and launch new services, ranging from mobile instant messaging to video sharing to mobile Internet access, which will work across networks and across national boundaries. At the same time, the GSMA is heavily engaged in the industry's push to extend basic voice and text services to more people in emerging markets.
Nigeria had always had a good representation during this fiesta. All operators and National regulator are always well represented in all the editions .At the award last year, MTN Communications Nigeria, won the community service initiative through its Rural Telephony project.
I have strong doubt if Nigeria’s representatives to these yearly event are really taking part or following the trend of attendance and innovation, given the successes that mobile marketing has achieved all over the world. Media organizations are the major innovations champions at the events.
Cnbc, Time and CNN are very visible partners because they had seen the future and they know it is mobile. For most media outfits in Europe and America, mobile is now a significant channel of reaching the masses with most of them offering mobile version of all conventional offerings. Nigerians happen to be the major consumer of those mobile offerings. British Broadcasting corporation reported that Nigerians constitute the highest numbers of wap users accessing its wap platform, worldwide. This is a example of a strong compelling content.
Despite the pressing need and readiness of Nigerians to consume these innovative services, the mobile operators even with 3G cannot see the opportunities in developing the ecosystem with content owners and the media. The annual Mass exodus to GSMA conferences in Barcelona,Spain will serve no purpose if Network operators cannot initiate their own local gatherings here in Nigeria, to develop a sustainable Mobile Value added service ecosystem in Nigeria.
Emmanuel Okoegwale
emmanuel@gomobileng.com
Friday 25 January 2008, 11:34 AM
3G and Nigeria Brands
Mobile Marketing is used to describe marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a mobile Phone. Mobile allows brands that have relied on traditional channels to create a more direct, sustained relationship with consumers. Mobile Marketing is yet to gain its foothold in Nigeria but with the upcoming 3G networks, this will allow data intensive applications,Brand and advert agencies will quickly see the opportunities in engaging the Mobile subscribers because of its uniqueness and interactivity.
South Korea is a classic example where Mobile marketing is striving. The largest network operator, SK Telecom, has some 500 clients and controls 80% of the country's mobile advertising market. AirCross pushes multimedia ads to about one million users who have opted in, lured by reductions in their phone bills. It also has a database of four million SMS opt-ins, though multimedia is growing at a faster rate, having pulled in big advertisers such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes and BMW since its launch last year.
The 3G Marketing is the next big thing in mobile services but how prepared are the Network operators, Brand owners and Brand marketers to move away from the traditional media to mobile?
3G Marketing has the capacity to reach mobile users in style and with rich contents for mobile subscribers. Content in many formats like video, sms, mms and audio and can now target the mobile users. It will put the creativity of Brand manager to task. Present Mobile marketing ecosystem in Nigeria is not buoyant with innovative services because the focus of Mobile operators still tends towards Voice where 95 percent of the accrued revenue comes from. Mobile Marketing is still in its infancy as Brand marketers are not even experimenting with what is available presently. Caller Ring Back and Bluetooth marketing do not require very complex technology but yet am yet to see one single deployment in the whole Nigeria.
The opportunities are immense and rewarding .More than 89 percent of Fortune 500 companies are dedicating more than 10 percent of their marketing Budget to mobile marketing in year,2008! The challenges for mobile marketing in Nigeria is tasking because Most Brand managers do not even understand the workings of the technology. Influx of low end phones will also inhibit the growth and spread of 3G Marketing and will be the immediate obstacle to mass-market 3G marketing because the user base is not sophisticated enough. Availability of 3G network in major cities will be a decisive factor if it will become a marketing medium of choice. Network operators are still battling with capacity issues and 3G might not be a front burner issues in low Average Revenue per user (ARPU) catchments areas and by implication brand owners may never be able to deploy a national mobile marketing campaign. They will have to manage with Regional.
The road ahead for 3G marketing is tough since Bandwidth issues will crop up intermittently. A key attribute of 3G is its ability to deliver high-quality MMS content, including streamed video with 3G subscribers able to tune into paid-for content from the likes of cinema owners like Numetro and silverbirds, showing cinema clips. Mobile Adverts can be streamed alongside a Tv programme and even Mobile users can be directed to a web site or WAP site that is dedicated to that ad.
Network operators should also allow media agencies to access their database so that campaigns can be more targeted based on the segmentation of subscribers but where they cannot allow that, then they can as well have an in-house agency because without a segmented database, there would be indiscriminate messaging to a mobile advertiser's user base or publisher base and this could seriously damage the development of this potentially lucrative advertising market. The mobile should not go the way of the internet in terms of spam. The time to put the structure in place is now.
Emmanuel Okoegwale
emmanuel@gomobileng.com
Private message disabled
