ICTworks by Inveneo

The Pew Forum has a new report out that focuses on religion in Africa. But hidden in the "Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa" document is a page on Internet usage - and guess who leads sub-Sahara Africa?

1. 60% of Djibouti going online regularly!
2. 36% of Botswana is second
3. 30% of Rwanda is third (but has highest hype)

This is in stark contrast to the World Bank report that puts Sudan and Zimbabwe at the top of the list.

You can download the full Pew report here: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=515 The ICT-related results start on page 320.

Here is a very heartening tweet from Ory Okolloh about Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile phone operator:

If in deed, Safaricom broadband modems and their use are making Safaricom more money than SMS, its a great day for both mobile phone users and Internet business opportunities in Kenya.

Internet Business Opportunity

Obviously, the more people online and consuming data, means there is more opportunity for existing businesses of all kinds to use the Internet to reach new customers and create more revenues.

Yet this is an amazing opportunity for new businesses - new models and new entrepreneurs. The barrier to entry for online businesses is very low and with organizations like iHub, we will see a cornucopia of new businessmen trying out ideas.

Mobile Phone Opportunity

Regardless of the Internet business opportunites, we should rejoice at the news that SMS is no longer the huge cash cow. Maybe now, mobile line operators will realize that Africa's mobile phone future is IP based, not SMS and loosen up on SMS restrictions.

This would release a second wave of innovation - SMS is still a killer app and would be even more revolutionary if prices were low and it had the openness of IP-based software code development.

Nigeria is a country of over 150 million people, located in sub-Saharan Africa and one of the fasted growing telecom market in the world. Let’s me take you through the emergence of the internet market in Nigeria, the potential, and how to tap into it.

Exploring the potential

The US is a model of what internet market can become in any part of the world, the way it transformed the economy, created young billionaires and disrupted industry to create seamless market for every available product.

Now the power is shifting away from US as emerging markets are beginning to understand the impact of the internet to economic development. It is good to note that China recently overtook the US in terms of internet users, and top technology and web companies are rushing to China to tap from the potentials.

Nigeria, being an emerging market is also a big market for those who can see it now! With over 11 million internet users and massive social media adoption, the Nigerian internet market is growing heavily.

What is obtainable now…

A recent webtrendsng.com report of the Nigeria internet market found news websites are the most visited in Nigeria followed by forum, jobs, portals and the banking sector websites. As the industry grows, there are a lot of vacuum to be filled, this ranges from payment system, local content, local social networks and advertising platform. The world's leading sites still dominate the local market as only one Nigerian site is among the top-ten websites visited by Nigerians (according to Alexa ranking).

This graph looks at the most active websites by industry in the Nigerian Internet Market in 2009. The lower the rank the higher the possibilities of untapped potentials, read full report here (PDF).

Gaining insight to tap the market

As I recently commented about the lack of understanding of the Nigerian internet market by investors as the limiting factor to tapping the goldmine. Around the globe, the internet market was stimulated by synergy of technologist and investors. Same could be applied here in Nigeria! There are number of sites that discusses the Nigerian internet market and the growing trends; some of which includes; webtrendsng.com, technologytimes.com.ng, startupsnigeria.org, and nairaland.com amongst others.

Nigerian technologist and thought leaders have been taking the evangelism of the potential of the market plus their innovations to investors. This is to intimate them about their products and market values they have. Google has identified the importance of the Nigerian internet market and will be organizing an event a week from now, to bring the technologist together, teach them about their technologies and education internet markets about Google products. It also planned invite VCs to meet up with technologist at the event

Events around the internet market this year;

1. Google Day Nigeria: A Google sponsored event to be held this February between 18th and 20th in University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos Nigeria.
2. Technology Outlook: An annual event organized by Technology times Magazine to bring industry leaders, bank managers, Government officials and technologist together to chart the course for the industry. This year’s event is significant as for the first time since its inception there will be a session for Web 2.0. This will enable Nigerian web technologists to meet with and take their messages to investors in the country. The event will be holding from 23rd – 25th of February 2010.
3. Barcamp Nigeria 2010: An “unconferenced” event organized by technologist for technologist. This event was started last year and brought technologist around the country together to share their experiences and passion for the development of the industry. This year’s event will come up around May 2010 with the theme “Creating local content for Nigerian web market”.
4. Nigerian Web Conference: The event is a brainchild of forum members on Nairaland.com, the forum that have been the most interactive and most visited Nigerian site for more than 4 years. The event also plans to bring developers together for networking and business development.
5. Nigerian Web Strategies Summit: This event plans to educate the corporate organizations about the importance of internet to their businesses and how they can explore the possibilities of the medium. One of the challenges faced by companies in Nigeria is the fact that they don’t know what the internet can do for them hence most have refused to increase their spending on internet marketing. It will also bring together solution providers in the industry to meet with their target market for business development. It is schedule to hold between August and September 2010.

The highlighted events are the ones announced so far and many more are yet to be announced. For anyone willing to tap into the Nigerian internet market, these events are must attend as it will give room for networking with innovators and movers in the industry.

What does the future hold?

As stated earlier, Nigerian internet population currently stands at 11 million, while telephone users are well above 70 million. CIA Factbook reported about 68% literacy rate in Nigeria, this is about 102 million available market, representing just the literate population of the country. The question now remains who will tap the remaining 91 million Nigerians that are yet to come online?

It is also good to note the penetration of mobile phones in the country; given the advancement in web technologies, the web is shifting to mobile so before the remaining populations are covered, mobile internet will be very instrumental to anyone willing to explore in the country.

The Nigerian internet market is a goldmine waiting to be tapped, the development around the country is pointing to the right direction, before it becomes saturated, why not get connected to the market to harvest the fortune?

What are you seeing in the Nigerian internet market? Do you think the time is now? Or what problem do you think needs urgent solution to harness the potential?

Shittu Sheriff, better know as Possicon is the founder of webtrendsng.com.

Hi All -

I'd like to see if we can start to collect statistics on Internet Use and any other information which affects access to ICTs in developing countries. I'll try to populate this topic as I find new items. And, here is a report of the ITU report Wayan just posted:

ITU says that less than 5% of Africans use the Internet

Do they count mobile phone access of Internet data?

Information Society Statistical Profiles 2009 – Africa
http://www.itu.int/publ/D-IND-RPM.AF-2009/en

Despite rapid growth, Africa’s ICT penetration levels in 2009 are
still far behind the rest of the world and very few African countries
reach ICT levels comparable to global averages. Less than five per cent
of Africans use the Internet, and fixed and mobile broadband
penetration levels are negligible.

Do they count mobile phone access of Internet data?

Information Society Statistical Profiles 2009 – Africa
http://www.itu.int/publ/D-IND-RPM.AF-2009/en

Despite rapid growth, Africa’s ICT penetration levels in 2009 are still far behind the rest of the world and very few African countries reach ICT levels comparable to global averages. Less than five per cent of Africans use the Internet, and fixed and mobile broadband penetration levels are negligible.