Within the next five years, Uber and Lyft will merge. They are fighting in the rings now, destroying value, because that is the only way to know the CEO of the future combined company. Lyft, after the recent $1 billion raise led by Google (yes, Alphabet), wants another $500 million. If all the money Uber has raised has been sent to Nigerian Senate, we will be in perpetual recess, enjoying the beaches of Paris and Bahamas.

Uber and Lyft will go the ways of many: Elance/Odesk (now UpWork),  Groupon / LivingSocial,  Sirius / XM and  Rover / DogVacay. I mean, there is warfare right now in how technology companies compete. Yes, you remember that U.S. Marines tagline: “the few, the proud”. That is even a crowd. The tech one is called Category-King and that means only one entity wins. You cannot have two Twitters, two Facebooks, and two WhatsApps but you can have many Salesforces, many HPEs, and many IBMs. Why? The former group belongs to consumer market while the latter group is enterprise focused.

The tech firms are in warfare, and that is good for consumers. In military, we have asymmetric warfare, or asymmetric engagement: a “war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly. This is typically a war between a standing, professional army and an insurgency or resistance movement”.

In the technology world, it is a real asymmetric competitive warfare which involves U.S. tech giants and their Chinese counterparts, but here the asymmetry is not on technology might, but on tactics. It is evident that few Western companies understand Chinese firms. That asymmetry in tactics is causing real problems. Western companies do not know what exactly they are competing against because the Chinese firms are always muted until they emerge. Because they are amorphous, you will struggle to understand them. They are bringing the tactics documented in the Art of War by Sun Tzue which their ancestors have perfected for generations.

Apple may consider buying Netflix, and possibly spend $100 billion, putting its future on TV. That sounds right because one day iPhone and iPad will stop to be magical: they are hardware with finite maturity evolution. Apple needs to find a future on services which will deliver future growth. It has hired some ace performers and also bought rights to Lords of the Rings, as it gears for this future on shows and movies. But possibly making this move, Apple is hedging because the competition has become cloudy. This is not just about Samsung, China is bringing heat. As Fortune Newsletter notes, China is a big concern.

The prominence of Chinese technology companies is impossible to avoid these days, and the company of the moment is Tencent. Competitor Alibaba is better known in the West. Huawei, a network equipment company, suddenly is a leader in smartphones. But Tencent is in now in the spotlight because its products are a leading example of Chinese innovation and its balance sheet has become a source of funds for startups around the world.

Tencent is no Johnny-come-lately. It is worth nearly $500 billion, and its WeChat messaging service is how young Chinese people communicate. It’s also a major video game publisher, a payments processor, and many more things. Its success begets so many other successes. Just as Masayoshi Son’s fortunes were secured because of SoftBank’s major stake in Alibaba, Tencent has saved the South African media company Naspers. Its early stake in Tencent is so valuable that investors have rated the core business of Naspers as worthless in comparison.

These Chinese companies have cash and are entering into new territories. Tencent has invested in Snap (maker of SnapChat), Tesla, mapmaker HERE Technologies, etc. It is possible it could go for Netflix because these companies have resources through China. As they wage their muscles, not just in China, but also in U.S., you should expect more U.S. companies to react.

You do not expect Amazon to make decisions without considering Alibaba. Of course, WeChat has evolved past WhatsApp and that means it is left for WhatsApp to capture it. Baidu is working to build the operating system of autonomous vehicles. The asymmetric warfare, based on tactics, is building up, and many companies will merge. The company Uber lost in China could one day come to challenge it in Africa and U.S. because Chinese firms are becoming increasingly bolder and intensely-globalizing.  No territory is off-limit, and that is exciting for end-users because services will improve even as costs drop.

Finally, one thing I cannot tell you is which company that is going to win this warfare. (I know that customers will win.) It looks convoluted for the consumer technology giants. Expect Tencent to buy Snap in coming years and integrate it fully into its ecosystems.  The hyper-competition in the  consumer tech sector will trigger mergers and consolidations, even as markets correct valuations in the very near future (within three years).

The competition from China in coming years will force many U.S. companies to readjust how they do business.

Finally, it is here: MTN Nigeria numbers can now dial the sun to provide electricity in homes. When I visited Kenya earlier in the year, I saw the team that pioneered what MTN and partners are bringing to Nigeria. Kenya’s M-KOPA has made it possible for families to use their mobile phone numbers to unlock solar power and pay for electricity. They give you some solar panel systems, you install in your house, and provided that you keep reloading your mobile phone number, with airtime credits, you will have electricity. It is the closest that you can get to pay-as-you-go model in electricity.

Using the pay-as-you-go model popularised by mobile phones, a remarkable Kenyan company, M-Kopa Solar, is providing rent-to-own solar energy products that will help provide cheap solar power to rural homes.

The M-Kopa IV Solar Home System includes a solar panel, control unit, three low-energy LED light bulbs (one of which is a portable, rechargeable torch) and a rechargeable radio. The control unit also has a USB port for charging cellphones. It’s a perfect off-the-grid solar system for Africa, where land-based infrastructure is poor and electricity supply is frequently erratic.

For a deposit of $35, buyers get the system then make 365 daily payments of $0.43 through mobile money system M-Pesa. When it is all paid off, the system belongs to the buyer outright.

Through Lumos, MTN Nigeria has brought this solution to Nigeria; it has sold its 60,000th unit. There could have been companies that started before Lumos/MTN, but you cannot discount the fact that MTN is behind this one. I expect it to be big, provided the acquisition cost is low. In short, if not for theft, the best penetration model could have been to make it pure energy-as-a-service where the initial acquisition cost is waived. That way, Lumos retains ownership of the solar systems, removing the burden to poor families who may be unable to afford the initial cost outlay.

But doing that will be irresponsible as people may not take good care of the equipments if they receive them free. A balance will be to make it rent-to-own where the customer can pay over time, and upon completing the payment term, takes ownership of the equipment. From Lumos press release sent to email:

This week, the Lumos Mobile Electricity Service deployed its 60,000^th Y’ello Box, an at-home solar electricity device that lets users gain access to reliable electricity at an affordable price. The Lumos service is combining the power of the sun and your MTN mobile phone to bring a new type of power to Nigeria.

[…]

TMobile phones have transformed the way we spend our daily lives. In fact, a recent report declared Nigeria as the ‘world’s most mobilized country’ (http://apo.af/qD8dM5) with more mobile traffic than any other nation. With more and more mobiles, they not only drive our demand for more accessible and reliable power, but they can also help provide the solution.

Lumos Mobile Electricity Service operate in partnership with MTN. Once MTN customers have joined the service, they pay their monthly subscription fee for power from their MTN’s mobile phones air account by texting a simple code. There’s no need for mobile money, bank accounts or expensive machines. This is quick, easy, affordable, quiet and clean.

This is one of those elements that will help families. But it does not take away industrial and commercial needs for electricity. We still have to find ways to power the country, but incremental innovations like what Lumos and MTN are doing, if affordable, could offer choices to families in their homes.

The Agro-Park in Delta

While you rejoice with the MTN dialing the sun for homes in Nigeria, Delta State wants to go big on agriculture.

Overall the focus of the agro-industrial park development strategy is to bring about the accelerated structural transformation of the state’s economy through graduated industrialisation, leveraging the share of the industrial sector of GDP and the GDP share of the agricultural based manufacturing sub-sector.

In value terms, the development of agro-industries parks in Delta State creates the stimulants and opportunity to accelerate economic development and achieve its industrialisation goals. Primarily, the government’s state executive council agro-industrial park initiative remains a potent vehicle for the structural transformation of the Delta State economy. The initiative is also expected to help pave the way for the realisation of Nigeria’s Vision 2020 of becoming a leading manufacturing hub in Africa.

The agro-industrial park will also promote economic diversification and growth of the state, including creating more than 5,000 jobs along the agricultural value chain. It will also provide common dedicated infrastructure and facilities for agro-processing, value addition and agribusiness as a means to improving the ease-of-doing business.

According to the commissioner, the park will be executed through Public-Private Partnership involving the Delta State government, the Israel based Mirai Group and Norsworthy Investments Limited.

It will be very fascinating if Delta State goes ahead to execute this project. Agriculture in Nigeria needs to be industrialized and this initiative will help. Yet, government may soon understand that industrializing farming will require electricity and MTN phone numbers cannot support the energy capacity required.