Latest numbers from NCC say the active lines in the nation’s telecommunications industry stood at 146,561,744 in May. Out of this 146m, 144m are GSM network subscribers.
I recently had an epiphany that Nigerians might be coming online in drones, but mentally, there is still a gap to be filled; many people in Nigeria are yet to truly enjoy the convieniece and power that the modern mobile phone puts in their hands. We, the early adopters, the techy literate ones already know these things and we approach making our things this way: brilliant and sohisticated, but what if what the mass needs right now is: simple stupid?
These days, I have started paying attention to how real people use their phones; I met a university graduate that does not store anybody’s phone numbers on her smartphone because she does not know how to! I know various people who cannot confidently execute common tasks on their devices that you and I take for granted.
If we are really serious about building products and services that will resonate with the 146m telco users in this country, we have to sit down and deal with the present situation while we patiently usher them in to the future. A friend interested in providing a service for parents wanted to print flyers containing his website address and then go around sharing the handbills; brilliant idea on the surface, terrible approach when we really think about it. A greater majority of those he will give his website address to will never check it out, they do not have smartphones or they might not have internet access or they might not even know what a website is. This is the real situation we have to deal with.
I am confident someone will eventually be able to build something that can be adopted in mass by these 146m subscribers, for now, we wait because it is clear to us that no one has really found a way to solve this challenge yet.
