Nigeria Mobile Marketing

In the face of Global economic downturn and reducing fortunes of governments worldwide, citizens engagement has never been so important and required to have a sense of belonging which is absent in the governance structure of Nigeria from the top –down.

The reality is that it will take a few years to get things working back because of the disequilibrium occasioned by the displacement of economic means of empowerment across all strata of the world societies and economy.

While government and private sectors are battling to return to the post crunch positions, citizens will have to be empowered through informational services and access to services that will reduce their cost of citizenship and hence improve governance. Most government revenue financials projections from citizens taxations and collectibles are projected to fall too since most people will try all they could to avoid such statutory payments since they now have lower income to play around with and obvious increasing cost of living and doing business.

Mobile government has been very successful in countries with similar demographics with Nigeria and they are counting the blessings. It has significantly reduced the cost of governance and increased the citizens participation at all levels. It has build confidence at all levels and this empowers the leaders to be more focused to deliver the dividends of democracy.

In a country like ours, where internet penetration is limited to the urban cities, limited literacy and huge cost of deployment, The mobile phone is easily a cheap means and ubiquitous channel to reach the masses. Internet penetration is currently hovering around the 10 percent mark while mobile penetration has gone further to reach almost half of the population with over 70 percent penetration with 55 million users, under an addressable market of 140 million people. This is quite impressive and significant growth is expected in 2009. No country in Africa is currently in the top rank 50 for e-govt index which Sweden leads the pack but with mobile govt, it can quickly change the outlook since citizens are not required to be e-ready to participate in Mobile government.


Mobile Government can be defined "as a strategy and its implementation involving the utilization of all kinds of wireless and mobile technology, services, applications and devices for improving benefits to the parties involved in e-government including citizens, businesses and all government units" (Kushchu and Kuscu, 2003). M-Govt will increase citizens participation, cost reduction, increase efficiency, transforming public sector organizations, reaching a significant number of the citizens which is not presently possible with the present medium of engagement.
Some services that can be provisioned in broad platforms are
Government to government (G2G) and business to government. (B2G) Government to government services are designed to make the internal functioning and communication within a public agency more efficient. For example, a public employee working outside the office (i.e. field workers) can use SMS to send information to the office. Such services can be developed by the government itself (G2G) or by businesses(B2G).A road traffic agent working for the likes of FRSC or Lasma can check with sms the traffic status of a road offender with the Back end office applications.
Government to business (G2B) M-city services from government to businesses aim to answer the following questions: "how to provide businesses with city information in the most timely manner" and "can mobile technologies contribute". In
most cases, businesses have a good access to Internet, which makes it reasonable to focus on such services where mobile phones have a clear advantage over the Internet.
Government to Citizen (G2C) and business to Citizen (B2C)
Most of the m-services that are launched are probably government to citizen or business to citizen services. Such services are aimed at making the communication between citizens and city government (or a public agency) more convenient or, to use mobile technologies to provide some
Government service in a better way.

The widespread use and high penetration rate of mobile telephony (in the world, compared to Internet penetration) combined with the high personal nature of mobile technologies seem to create interesting possibilities for government services/applications. The number of people
having access to mobile phones and mobile internet (connection) is still increasing rapidly as well. Mobile access is becoming a common good for many people and 'we' have become used to the anywhere, anyplace, anytime communication, information and entertainment society.
Nevertheless, there are a number of technical challenges as well that need to be taken for m-government to be successful (for example, interoperability, security, and privacy). Besides the technical challenges, a number of organizational and/or cultural aspects need to be taken into consideration as well.


M-Government is not meant to usurp the successes recorded so far with e-Govt but to strongly complement it in reaching the masses in a cost effective way using a channel that is reachable, twenty four hours of the Day.

Emmanuel Okoegwale
NettelAfrica Telecommunications Scholar
emmanuel@gomobileng.com

According to Wall Street Journal, the global economic downturn and weakening demand, handset makers and vendors affiliated with cell phone components are probably headed toward a large shakeup in 2009.

Mobile penetration in Nigeria is close to 48 percent of total population of 140 million people and this has fuelled the strong market standings of major Handset suppliers and resellers in Nigeria in the last few years. Mobile handsets of different models and from diverse makers can be bought at most mobile outlets across the cities in Nigeria at competitive prices.
The immediate effects of global recession for this market will not be visible for the grey market merchants whose source of products are from Dubai and China because they still have unorthodox method of sourcing foreign exchange which has declined in value significantly since December. Since they also pass on grey phones as originals, their margins will still be manageable and higher.
The challenge lies at the doors of the original handset importers or representatives which cannot engage in unwholesome practices and must pay every form of duties to get their stock into the market.
Network expansion is a chief driver of Handset acquisition. The questions are, How many new towns and villages will the Nigerian operators add to their foot prints in year 2009 in face of dwindling resources and High credit cost, equipment financing, cost of funds and Low ARPU projections from new town / villages add-on.

The declining value of the Naira against every major world currency automatically translates into higher prices in an economy with fast declining disposable income per head.
Mobile operators might benefit in a recession since subscribers will have to weigh cost of doing businesses, traveling against making of calls. Making of calls will always be a cheaper alternative in Nigeria with fast decaying transportation channels.
Due to increased competition, some dominant GSM handset makers will be enticed to look at the cdma market which is operator tied market in Nigeria. Players like Huawei and ZTE will focus on bringing to the table, cheaper handset models that will significantly reduce entry cost for end users.
Nokia should focus on selling its High portfolio phones which it has in abundant ranges, based on benefits and rather than functionalities. They should be at the fore front of educating the end users what values these phones can deliver to enhance productivity.
In the third quarter of 2008, about 309 million mobile phones were sold world-wide, a 6% increase from a year earlier, but a significant decline from the 16% year-to-year growth seen in the third quarter of 2007. Replacement sales were hit especially hard, while first-time users remained active. Nokia kept the lead with 118 million handsets or a 38.2% share, Samsung sales were around 53 million or a 17.1% market share whereas Sony Ericsson came third with 24.8 million handsets sale and a market share of 8.1%.How many of those came our way in Nigeria is not clear since there is no public information in that regards but Nokia still remains a market leader, followed by Samsung.
The quick way forward to rebound the markets in Nigeria will be significant up take in Mobile Banking and if before end of year, Nigerian Banks and Investors are able to launch mass market and application based mobile payment systems, this will open a new strong channel with strong compelling factors.For the market to strive in 2009, Phone makers will need to do more than placing Billboards on the streets.The time to engage the ecosystems is Now.

Emmanuel Okoegwale
Mobile Marketing Specialist