Is Mobile Web Replacing Traditional Web in Nigeria?
Mobile Web has become a global phenomenon. In Africa, more and more Internet users are acccessing the Web everyday via their mobile phones. In South Africa, there are now at least 9,5 million mobile wap users, according to an article in Bizcommunity published in Matthew Buckland’s blog.
While South Africa and Egypt lead the way for mobile Web adoption (see Admob Report - Sept. 2008), Nigeria’s mobile web penetration is gradually exploding and might soon replace the traditional web. Lately, I’ve been following mobile web trends around Africa and I found that Opera’s State Of the Mobile Web Report for September 2008, indicates that traffic from Nigeria (for usage of Opera Mini), increased by 704.9% and page-view growth increased by 1690.2% since January 2008.
This means that there is a growing number of mobile internet users in Nigeria that are following mobile trends around the world with a focus on Africa. I also found that my.opera.com was ranked 6th amongst the top 10 sites by unique users from Nigeria. Thanks to Opera and Admob for these interesting reports.
In fact, according to Admob’s mobile metrics Report for September 2008, the worldwide traffic shows Nigeria on the 7th position in their top 20 list of countries, just below South Africa at 6th place (which is also in 6th position in Opera’s top 10 Opera Mini users worldwide). Well, time will tell if this trend would be sustainable in the coming months. My guess is: It will.
Although Neilsen Online doesn’t display mobile web statistics for Nigeria, senior analyst, Kent Ferguson, said that 7.3 million Nigerians accessed the internet using mobile phones during Q2 and Q3 of 2008, while those using PCs drastically slumped to three percent within the same period.
My Take On This
This means that the landscape of mobile web penetration in Nigeria is exploding. In fact, when compared to PC-penetration rates, I think that mobile will be the major platform for the Web in the future, since mobile internet access is cheaper and easily accessible.
Besides, given the wider reach and high-penetration rates of mobile phones in Nigeria, and the seemingly expensive and low penetration of traditional internet access in Nigeria, more and more people would be connecting to the internet via their mobile phones in the nearest future.
Further, the mobile web trend could surpass internet usage via PCs, as accessing the internet via mobile phones is faster, cheaper and much easier. My guess is that, social networking sites would take advantage of this mobile web trend, and soon we might see mobile social networks coming from Nigeria.
It would also be interesting to see smart mobile applications or platforms like Kenya’s Mpesa built with WAP technologies that allow Nigerian mobile phone users to connect with people via mobile messaging services.
I think you are right. But I am still suprise why many startups or companies are not already tapping into the Mobile paltform.
What do you think about the dot mobi domains?
What is the future mobile.domain.com or domain.mobi?
@Richard - I guess it’s cos people are still glued to web products and apps, and very few are looking at mobile apps for now. It’s definitely a promising space if one knows what to do and how to do.
@Alfredo - I think the early adoption of dotMobi domain name would be a smart thing for mobile applications as they become relevant today. Besides, it is sponsored by top companies such as Google and Microsoft, Vodafone and other mobile companies, so we expect to see other sites get involved.
My problem with it is that one has to manage two sites domain.mobi and domain.com, instead of one, as in mobile.domain.com For example, if this blog - StartupsNigeria - where to launch a mobile review site, I’d prefer to have mobile.startupsnigeria.com to avoid hassles than create another domain at startupsnigeria.mobi
Again, I haven’t seen much adoption of the domain.mobi since it was available for public registration late 2006. But, I’m optimistic that it will go far with time.
am already tapping into the mobile world…u can check out my blog on any internet connected phone at http://ogbongeblog.mofuse.mobi
@SECRET INFOS - Hey, nice site you’ve got there. Thanks for sharing that link to discover blog feeds. Excellent tool!
Mobile internet usage will be on the increase more, when gsm network providers reduce their tarrifs. We are 0.15kb per kb, that is about the highest rate in the world, please note that the sudden boom in mobile internet penetration in nigeria is mostly as a result of loopholes found in network provider servers using opera mini mod, thats what am using to paste this coment, just searct nairaland for free browsing trick and see what i mean.
@Loy
But if you make mobile.domain.com. You need another site with the special code (xhtml) for cellphones. You cant use the same web for mobile users and web users.
I know is complicate.
Anyway, I read the start of mobi.ng Do you know the next change of com.ng without restrictions about address local?
@Alfredo - Yeah, you’re right. I think MoFuse has the this fucntionality.
I’m afraid you need a local address to get a .ng domain name. See my post.
[...] the time, Kenya and Nigeria Opera Mini users were surging, and we predicted that the mobile web will replace traditional web in Nigeria. With this report, Nigeria is now the [...]
[...] the time, Kenya and Nigeria Opera Mini users were surging, and we predicted that the mobile web will replace traditional web in Nigeria. With this report, Nigeria is now the [...]