It is a massive accomplishment in a nation which seems to be in a miry clay. Yes, MTN Nigeria left the solid bounds which have :gravitized” many companies in Nigeria, and ascended into a financial world of zero-gravity, recording N2 trillion annual revenue. That is a record for a Nigerian company: “The feat firms up the place of the wireless carrier as Nigeria’s biggest public company by revenue, with turnover climbing 21.6 per cent to N2 trillion and service revenue contributing 99.7 per cent of that sum.”

Covid-19 broke industrial sectors, but some sectors, despite the paralysis, captured huge financial value. With people constrained in their homes, talking and using the web became the few options to keep the hours going. Fascinatingly, post-Covid, for many, that has become a way of life. 

Why travel to that conference when you can Zoom in? Why waste money organizing that event in Calabar when there is a Zoom? Why have that local, on-site data center when due to Covid, you went cloud? Magically, Covid changed how people, firms and states work, unleashing a new normal which companies like MTN Nigeria are benefiting from.

Yes, that redesign has transformed the telecommunication sector across the world as data (yes number) has become the bedrock upon which modern companies are built. Pythagoras postulated that many centuries ago. MTN Nigeria has seen growth and it has the numbers.  Run the math, that is about 10% of Nigeria’s annual budget. Now, you are reading – and talking!

People, a South Africa’s DNA’d company is helping us to understand that wealth abounds in Nigeria. Congrats to the home of Y’ello.

Premium Times has a good report on the same.

MTN Nigeria Communications Plc reported revenue in excess of the N2 trillion mark for 2022, a bumper year during which turnover swelled by one-fifth and bottom-line by about the same rate, its audited earnings report showed on Wednesday.

The feat firms up the place of the wireless carrier as Nigeria’s biggest public company by revenue, with turnover climbing 21.6 per cent to N2 trillion and service revenue contributing 99.7 per cent of that sum.

Income sources, including data and digital services, saw appreciable growth, details of the report showed.

The local unit of Johannesburg-based MTN Group signed up 7.2 million new subscribers in the review year translating to an expansion of 10.5 per cent and increasing its subscriber base to 75.6 million.

“We continued to manage and invest in the resilience of our business and networks, expanding coverage and capacity with a focus on expense efficiencies and disciplined capital allocation,” CEO Karl Toriola said in a separate document accompanying the financials.

“We became the first mobile network operator to launch a 5G network in Nigeria, providing coverage in key cities in the six geopolitical regions. Since its commercial launch in September 2022, we have rolled out 588 sites and brought the 5G network to 5G-enabled smartphones, starting with iPhone users.”

Finance income modestly grew to N13.8 billion from N11.9 billion, driven by interest income on bank deposits.

The telco last May launched its payments subsidiary MoMo PSB one month after it got regulators’ approval to run the unit, and the latest report indicated it had added 2 million active mobile money wallets since the launch to the end of December.

Active fintech subscribers surged by over a half to 14.9 million during the year.

Direct network operating costs, which soared 18.1 per cent to N459 billion, and finance costs, which leapt by approximately one third, were major pressure points for earnings.

Costs saw considerable jump, dealing a blow on margin, which stood at 17.8 per cent compared to the financial year 2021, when net profit margin was 18.1 per cent.

“As at 31 December 2022, the Group had trade receivables of N85.88 billion before expected credit loss of N13.65 billion,” independent auditor Ernst & Young noted in its report.

“The telecommunication industry continues to be impacted by certain macroeconomic challenges that resulted in the Company experiencing uncertainty over the collectability of some of its receivables from specific customers,” it added.

Pre-tax profit stood at N534 billion compared to the N436.7 billion reported a year ago, while net profit climbed 20.2 per cent to N358.9 billion from N298.7 billion.

MTN Nigeria said in another regulatory filing it would pay shareholders a final dividend per share of N10, summing up to a potential payout of N203.5 billion.

Should the proposal win shareholders’ approval, the total dividend payment for the year will come to N317.5 billion (N15.60 per unit). That compares to N267.1 billion (N13.12 per share) one year prior.

MTN Nigeria is the biggest market of MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile network operator, with assets totalling N2.7 trillion as of the end of December.

There is only one Google Search. Yes, there is no subscription-based Google Search. ChatGPT has a new idea – charge $20/month for its elevated solution: “Dubbed ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI said the cost starts from $20 per month, but with enormous benefits that include general access to ChatGPT even during peak times, faster response times and priority access to new features and improvements – all better than the base-level ChatGPT.”

I will not subscribe to this service as the playbook makes no sense unless it is work or project related. But just checking things up on the web, at a personal level, should not take me backwards that much. Yet, if they can work with Microsoft and bundle it with Microsoft 365 so that I can pay for it along with Excel, Word, etc licenses, that will work. But going solo for ChatGPT+ for personal use, no way!

Of course, bills have to be paid and this experimentation is good. “ChatGPT: is a subscription business model a good business strategy?” Would be good to know how it answers.

ChatGPT: OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Plus, Starting at $20 Per Month

OpenAI has launched the monetized version of ChatGPT, its phenomenal chatbot disrupting the web search industry with unique text-generating ability.

The company announced the plan to launch a professional version last month, in aim to create more efficient alternative for professionals who’d be counting on it to speed up their work.

Dubbed ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI said the cost starts from $20 per month, but with enormous benefits that include general access to ChatGPT even during peak times, faster response times and priority access to new features and improvements – all better than the base-level ChatGPT.

We're piloting ChatGPT Plus, a $20/mo subscription for faster response times and reliability during peak hours: https://t.co/ZDK37w9MIs

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) February 1, 2023

However, the company said the free version of the ChatGPT stays, adding that the ChatGPT Plus is only available to US customers for now.

OpenAI’s cofounder Greg Brockman tweeted the plan last month, inviting people to join the waitlist as they aim to create the version which will “offer higher limits & faster performance.” The company said Wednesday it’ll begin the process of inviting people from its waitlist in the coming months and look to expand ChatGPTPlus to additional countries and regions soon.

Working on a professional version of ChatGPT; will offer higher limits & faster performance. If interested, please join our waitlist here: https://t.co/Eh87OViRie

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) January 11, 2023

“We launched ChatGPT as a research preview so we could learn more about the system’s strengths and weaknesses and gather user feedback to help us improve upon its limitations,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post. “Since then, millions of people have given us feedback, we’ve made several important updates and we’ve seen users find value across a range of professional use cases including drafting and editing content, brainstorming ideas, programming help and learning new topics.”

OpenAI indicated that other plans are on the way, according to its blog post. The company said that it’s “actively exploring” options for lower-cost plans, business plans and data packs in addition to an API.

“We love our free users and will continue to offer free access to ChatGPT. By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access availability to as many people as possible,” it said. “We plan to refine and expand this offering based on your feedback and needs.”

ChatGPT has seen unprecedented growth since it was launched late last year, recording more than a million users in its first month. Its sweeping adoption is being fueled by its AI-powered ability to generate answers and authentic-looking responses to queries about all topics. ChatGPT uses the GPT-3.5, a language model released last year, to accomplish tasks such as creating poems, composing college essays and writing code.

Last month, the AI-powered chatbot passed an MBA exam set by a Wharton professor, scoring strong B. It has also passed law and US medical licensing exams, adding to several other brilliant ways it has wowed users.

ChatGPT’s brilliance has stoked investment interest in OpenAI, with Microsoft, which had invested $1 billion in the company in 2019, leading the pack. Last month, Microsoft increased its investment in OpenAI with reported $10 billion as the company pushes for $29 billion valuation.

This is despite the shortfalls that have cast doubt on ChatGPT’s reliability. OpenAI’s cofounder and CEO Sam Altman has warned that the chatbot cannot be trusted at the moment because it is still prone to misinformation and biases. As educators worry about ChatGPT’s impact on critical thinking, some schools have made decisions to ban it.

But OpenAI has come under pressure to turn a profit on products like ChatGPT following Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investment that includes move to incorporate the chatbot into Microsoft’s search engine Bing.

The company expects to make $200 million in 2023, which amounts to nothing compared to how much Microsoft has betted on it. Altman said ChatGPT’s operating expenses are “eye-watering,” amounting to a few cents per chat in total compute costs.

To win in markets, you need to have a great product-market fit. It is a spot where the frictions in markets and the “forces” (the products and services) you are creating to overcome them attain equilibrium.

So, when Peloton, an experience-exercise company, which helped people do exercise at home, was raking it at the peak of the pandemic, I wrote: “before you invest, think beyond Covid-fit to market-fit”. In other words, that product must not just do well during Covid pandemic, but also when normalcy returns.

Normalcy returned and Peloton stock crashed before something amazing began to happen: Peloton went to the strategy lab and invented a new business model – and with that model, there seems to be a ray of hope: “but the fitness company’s stock rose nearly 20% Wednesday as revenue exceeded projections and subscriptions outpaced hardware sales. Sales for Peloton’s connected equipment fell drastically (52% year over year), yet revenue for subscriptions rose markedly (22%)”.

There is power in the subscription business model: investors love it. If Peloton moves into that playbook, even a revenue fall on hardware will not affect its mission. Of course, when the sale of the iPhone was not moving in the way Apple wanted, the company stopped reporting iPhone numbers. Simply, Apple emerged from a “hardware” company to a service company with App Store, subscription, etc powering that future. Markets have rewarded Apple for that. Peloton has a date with alpha if it executes well.

Peloton may have reported a loss for the eighth consecutive quarter, but the fitness company’s stock rose nearly 20% Wednesday as revenue exceeded projections and subscriptions outpaced hardware sales. Sales for Peloton’s connected equipment fell drastically (52% year over year), yet revenue for subscriptions rose markedly (22%), prompting CEO Barry McCarthy to suggest that it might be a “turning point.” Peloton boomed at the start of the pandemic, but took a substantial hit as the world opened back up, with the home gym equipment maker conducting its fourth round of layoffs this past fall.

Good People, the most important thing in business is the business model. Most times, markets are not the problem. The challenge is coming up with the right business model to unlock the latent opportunities. Companies pay CEOs to come up with the right business model.

It is a hopeless journey to think selling exercise equipment will make you rich in the age of China (anyone can clone and order a similar equipment). But delivering exercise-anchored lessons on proprietary hardware has a chance. Yes, nothing says it cannot open its platform for others to create services in the ecosystem.