After I chose the CEO/GMD of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, as my Businessperson of the Year, many had written, making a case that CEO/GMD of GTBank, Segun Agbaje, would have been a better choice. Largely, as I noted, all the CEOs won because anyone that saw its institution from Jan to Dec in Nigeria is a winner – our market remains extremely unpredictable that anything can happen.

Yet, despite the strong shareholder value GTBank has created over the years, 2018 was not necessarily superb in that institution. But because it was light years ahead of others, we did not notice. GTbank lost 15% of shareholder value in 2018 even though it accounted for 26% of all banking market value in Nigeria, as at Dec 31 2018. On technology, GTBank has lost grounds to competitors, and Agusto & Co actually ranked it 5th on the Best Digital Bank in Nigeria.

As you can see, I am doing everything to explain why I did not choose GTBank even though it was clearly a category-king in Nigeria. Though it has built the best shareholder value in the last few years, last year was not great. Its technology supremacy is cracking that it came 5th in a ranking. Sure – it remains the best but 2018 was not super-great.

But when compared with Access Bank, it moved from #3 to #1 (post-deal closure) on asset. It added millions of new customers and it got a good deal on Diamond Bank. Less than 5 years ago, Diamond Bank was worth excess of $400 million; Access is paying $200 million (N62 billion). In short, if Access decides to sell all the real estate of Diamond Bank, it would have extra change on that N62 billion it is paying [I get it; many would throw digital bombs on that last line].

In summary, Herbert has to unlock great value in Diamond Bank to justify this deal. My thesis is that he is a visionary leader to have done this deal. That does not mean that he has added value just by doing it. The Nobel Prize committee gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize hoping that he would make the world a prepaid paradise. That did not happen, as Obama deployed more hellfire grenades and bombs to protect his nation. I do hope that Herbert will execute.

Nigeria’s 4th largest telecom operator, 9Mobile, which controls 9% market share, serving 15.4 million subscribers, has a New Year message: the firm will use IoT and machine learning to find new markets and territories. The Acting Managing Director, Stephane Beuvelet, hopes to recapture the old Etisalat Nigeria moment through product innovation at scale.

“From an aggressive enhancement of network capacity and innovative features to boost HD voice and video/data services, LTE network coverage expansion to 15 new cities, more innovative data offerings including triple play and streaming service, to digital services that support your everyday needs such as our 9Pay payment service, we are set to break fallow grounds in emerging areas like Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning capabilities to drive superior customer experience,”  Acting Managing Director, Stephane Beuvelet, said

If they do execute in that space, that would be the phase 3 of the mobile telephony era: 2000s gave us the era of voice; 2010s gave us mobile internet, and 2020s will deliver amalgam of services like IoT built on the mobile connectivity which I expect to become ubiquitous by 2022.

Yet, 9Mobile should not see the revenue paralysis as purely technology-anchored. Yes, the biggest problem in Nigerian telecom is not just innovating on technology. The players must innovate on business model also. It is that business model innovation that would enable companies like 9Mobile to use the customer data to create new revenue models to fund these new ambitious projects.

I am surprised the company is not banking on using its customer data (under the right privacy) to architect this new future. Until someone can use the data telcos have captured via SIM card registration to build contract-based revenue system, among others, this harmattan of revenue erosion will remain.

Build a faster network, someone buys $1 worth of mobile internet credit, and spends 3 hours on WhatsApp calling someone in London. You have not helped yourself immensely as a telco. But if you get that person to buy a monthly package, then, it is immaterial what he does with his phone. That redesign of using customer data to create new revenue streams would be catalytic to the survival of the industry.

Apple is a company that differentiates on hardware within exclusive software. What makes Apple so unique is narrowing, and I expect the core feature differences to disappear by 2021, essentially two iPhone evolutions away. Android devices are very close. You may even argue that we are already there.

Every fashionista passes because it is a trend: spending $1,000 on a mass market phone will not work if there are good alternatives at $700. The finite hardware maturity improvement will catch up with Apple. Since it cannot claim it has the exclusivity to software innovation with Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy coming along, not many will spend $1,000 for a phone. The major down-projection of iPhone X sales is a testament that others are rising even as Apple innovates. As uniquely Apple, the company deflected the problem to China last night.

Apple CEO Tim Cook released a statement, warning investors Wednesday that the company is lowering expectations for its first quarter 2019 performance: “While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.”

If you are an Apple investor, do not fall for that explanation above. Yes, Apple has a very big problem in its business model: you are transforming into a service company, and at the same time you want to stay premium on your hardware, restricting volume..

Simply, the company is making it clear that its future is going to include services. So, if you hold Apple stocks because of iPhones and iPads, you may have to reconsider. By dropping the disclosure, Apple wants investors to focus on its revenue bottomline and not the number of devices sold. As far as the company is concerned, if it can grow revenue through payment, apps, licensing, etc, investors should not overly care what is happening on hardware as the company transmutes into making services a key part of its future. Simply, Apple has gone Services.

As I have noted before, Apple needs to make very cheap iPhone so that more people can use its hardware to participate in the services. You do not expect to have huge volume when your hardware is very expensive. It is either you focus on selling expensive hardware or you expand access to improve the number of people that can participate in the services through affordable hardware. Apple has no service future if it plans to thrive in services with very expensive hardware like we have today. Simply, it needs a cheaper version!

Yet, Apple has to be very strategic in its pricing. My suggestion is this: increase the price of the highest version of iPhone to $1,200 and make it more premium. And then introduce a phone brand called Apple and make the price $350. Make the design of Apple (the phone brand) to be radically different so that you do not cannibalize the premium iPhone. By having these two brands, Apple can compete in both the upper and lower segments of the markets. We will have Apples in Nigeria while they will sell their iPhones in New York. This is similar to Toyota selling Lexus and Honda selling Acura.

Fortune in a newsletter captured these elements thus.

In a blab-fest worthy of Dr. Phil, Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a 1,370-word letter to investors about a surprise 5% revenue drop, then went on CNBC for another 15 minutes of excuse-making.

Instead of bringing in $91.5 billion in the holiday quarter, as Wall Street analysts expected, Apple’s revenue totaled just $84 billion. That’s down from an all-time record of $88.3 billion a year earlier. The main culprit was slipping sales in China, Cook said. Apple’s stock, already down 30% in the past three months, fell another 9% in morning trading on Thursday. That pushed Apple’s market cap below those of Amazon and Google. (It was already trailing Microsoft .) But Apple’s CEO said he remains “confident and excited” about Apple’s long-term future.

[…]

Recommended reads must start with Bloomberg columnist Shira Ovide, who chastises Cook for not warning investors years earlier about the forces conspiring to stall smartphone sales.

Apple would be fine but it needs to understand that services win on volume, and it is time it adjusts strategy to grow user base with cheaper devices. If not, the revenue will be dropping from here.