I have written extensively on Etisalat Nigeria. My point remains that Etisalat Nigeria’s root problem is not really foreign currency related (partly it is). Many are making a case that the firm took loans in USD and when Naira crashed, it could not service a foreign currency-denominated loan with Naira. Hence the challenges it is facing now.
They are partly correct. However, in my opinion, the real cause of Etisalat Nigeria problem is customer retention. This is the root cause and I will explain with hard data which does not lie.
This Root Cause
Please refer to NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission) data here which is reproduced in the table below.
These are the key takeaways:
Etisalat NG lost about 2 million users in Q4 2016 (Dec 2016). For a #4 operator to lose that number of customers means it is going to struggle. This has nothing to do with any loan in dollars or Naira. All other operators gained from it including MTN, Glo and Airtel (i.e. between Sept 2016 and Dec 2016, they added more users in their networks)
In Q1 2017 (Mar 2017), it lost about another 1 million. Etisalat lost nearly the same number of users as MTN, but MTN is about 3x its size. So Etisalat lost most, technically. Airtel gained users while Glo lost just a few (about 30,000)
Had Etisalat NG kept the 2 million it lost in Q4 2016 and each of those subscribers spending N2,000 during the period, on average, it would have earned N4 billion naira extra in revenue.
Also, had Etisalat NG kept the 1 million it lost in Q1 2017, it would have added extra revenue of N2 billion using the same average spending of N2,000 per user. Please carry forward the N4 billion owing to the lost of 2 million users in Q4 2016. With that, Etisalat would have earned extra N6 billion in Q1 2017 on top of whatever it earned.
Add these two extra revenues of Q4 2016 and Q1 2017, Etisalat would have made extra N10 billion (~$30 million). This would have kept it in a good position to be servicing its debt.
Why Banks Took Action
I do not have the insider information. But looking at the data from NCC, banks could have decided that Etisalat was on a slippery road with the users it was losing. The problem was not that it could not pay the loan. The problem was that it was losing users. As #4, that was fatal.
Had Etisalat been holding up with its user base or better adding users, banks would have given it time to sort itself. But where it had these fatal flaws in numbers, they had no option before the problem deepened.
You can be an orator, but numbers are numbers. In business, that makes everyone a better presenter. Etisalat NG did not have good numbers in Q4 2016 and Q1 2017.
Why the UAE Parent Firm Pulled Out
This is still the same reason. They do not see how Etisalat NG could grow. So instead of bailing out the firm, they decided to cut their losses. If Etisalat problem was paying the remaining balance of the loan, rumored to be about $600 million, without the loss of customer base, they could have helped,
This assertion is supported by the fact that Etisalat Management wanted money to invest in growth. They got it via the loans. So what again will you do? You have given them money and the result is customer exodus? There is no better strategy than to abandon the firm. Then wait for it to fail so that assets are sold to recover whatever is possible. (Please do not make this personal. I am just reporting facts here and business.)
Rounding Up
The fact is that there is no better reason for a firm with the best customer service, according to NCC and generally customers, will be losing the most customers, other than that its pricing is high. That is why I have maintained this position and will continue to do so until we see new data to change our narrative, And the customer exodus triggered by that high pricing resulted to the massive loss of revenue which precipitated in the inability to keep servicing the debt.
ICT is facilitating the process of socio-economic development in Nigeria. It has offered new ways of exchanging information, and transacting businesses, efficiently and cheaply. It has also changed the dynamic natures of financial, entertainment and communication industries and provided better means of using the human and institutional capabilities of the nation in both the public and private sectors. Nigerians have seen a total redesign of many industrial sectors, from banking to insurance, as technology reduces the friction in business processes. Technology improves efficiency, delivering better experience for customers.
Increasingly, ICT is rapidly moving Nigeria towards knowledge-based economic structures and information societies, comprising networks of individuals, firms and states that are linked electronically and in interdependent global relationships. This linkage has enabled new classes of companies to emerge, not just in Nigeria, but globally.
We have gotten used to phrases like “Network Effects” and “Portal Effects” as typically used when digital ecosystems and platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn become more efficient, not just for the features, but for the very fact they have most people using them.
Uber has pioneered aggregation of transportation, at scale. Airbnb has also done the same in the hospitality sector. (Aggregation is a construct where an app or web app brings suppliers into an ecosystem for users/customers to find and patronize them. Uber aggregates taxi services for travelers or just for a city trip. Airbnb aggregates spare rooms for those that need rooms when they are out of town. The companies earn income through commissions.) Aggregation has made it possible that we can have a “home” outside home, for those that desperately want to save when they travel. Technology has made this aggregation possible, at cost model, that the startups that pioneered them have become empires; Uber is worth excess of $50 billion.
Airbnb is an online marketplace and hospitality service, enabling people to lease or rent short-term lodging including vacation rentals, apartment rentals, homestays, hostel beds, or hotel rooms.
Uber has found success, but Airbnb struggles, in Nigeria. We know of Uber and use the service. Airbnb is largely off the radar. Few writes about it. There are pockets of listing across major cities, but Airbnb has no meaningful presence in Nigeria. Airbnb has been operational in Nigeria since 2014 even though we may not know the office address, if it exists.
In South Africa, which I visited recently, the level of Airbnb penetration was noticeable. Even in poor neighborhoods like Langa, near Cape Town, you can see many Airbnb listing. People have turned their homes into Airbnb homes. In Nigeria, we are yet to experience that.
Not Really Airbnb Problem
The root of this issue is Nigeria, and it is a big problem that is evident to most entrepreneurs, depending on the business sector. Because of the low level of trust, especially in digital business, Nigerians like “cash and carry” transactions, where that cash now includes digital payments.In essence, we want to spend money on something and get the gratification immediately. Or better, we want to inspect before we pay.
The commodification of trust which has made Airbnb a multi-billion dollar firm does not work in Nigeria. When you do not have that trust, nothing can work. It is also a problem that technology, by itself, cannot just fix. It is at the root of Nigerian challenges online and that affects many companies including Konga, Jumia and other e-commerce companies. That has reduced the available pool of quality customers – people that make good income but are fearful of spending online in Nigeria. They have minimal trusts on websites and our payment infrastructures.
I have experienced this as an entrepreneur. Few years ago, we launched StartCrunch, a crowdfunding website, to help Nigerian entrepreneurs and makers crowdfund support for their ideas. Within days we had many people listing. However, that venture failed because they could not attract backers. Most were not sure the makers would deliver the perks, as promised. Without backers, we could not make money. We closed the business.
Airbnb listing in Lagos
Fixing This Is Beyond Technology
The history of the lack of trust in Nigerian Internet can be linked to the boom in the “corruption sector” in Nigeria, which was aggressively invented by the military. As Internet penetrated in our society, the corruption went digital. The emergence of the Yahoo Boys should not be seen as an Internet phenomenon, rather an extension of a physical moral collapse. As military men ripped off the commonwealth, excluding many ordinary citizens, Internet provided a window for some of the excluded in a country with minimal opportunities, to try acts they had mastered in the meatspace (the physical world). Most of those men were later branded as Yahoo Boys. They poisoned digital Nigeria. The implication is that the Internet in Nigeria became corrosive to the extent that some courts and banks, at a time, did not accept emails or documents from the web (that has since changed).
Changing this unfortunate path of Nigeria will not happen overnight. It will require orientation on civility and decency, which will take time to evolve. That is when we can see companies like Airbnb that require a higher level of trust to flourish, not just for the Americans but also for their Nigerian equivalents.
Three Key Problems for Airbnb in Nigeria
The heart of Airbnb problems in Nigeria can be summarized thus:
Difficulty of getting people to use their debit and credit cards to reserve “home” online. Even when people like to try, most will be afraid to put their cards online, for access to someone’s home (which is not a hotel). This sentiment may not be for college students, but for most, it is an issue. That said, Wakanow, Hotel.ng, etc have shown that customers do spend to get hotel rooms. Sure, Airbnb homes are different.
Trusting that people will see the rooms as advertised when they visit the “homes”. The perception of cheating makes few believe what they see online. The house looks good, but you are not sure. This is a huge challenge.
Overcome the security challenges since Nigerian Police is largely not on top of its game to prosecute crime, if it happens. What happens if someone is harmed, the guest or the renter? Airbnb is risky; doing that in Nigeria, as a guest, could be seen as madness. This is the biggest reason why Airbnb struggles. unfortunately, the firm cannot do much here. A LinkedIn user after this piece ran summarized thus “I read your piece and loved it! I just need to include a 4th problem for Airbnb: The Security of the homeowner. Some people will habour the fear of being raided by the so called guest who has come to sleep in their home whether immediately or after his/her stay. Trust is the highest denomination in Digital Currency!“
Rounding Up
Nigeria is largely pre-monetisation era of Internet, at scale. Sure we have Konga, Hotel.ng, Jumia and iROKO, but the fact remains that it will take another 5-7 years to see dramatic evolution of spending on Internet. That has to happen before transactions which do not deliver value on the spot can be done by many people. Uber has to risk because you pay the driver when you get to destination. But when it comes to knocking on a door of a stranger, to sleep there, it is a tough one. The commodification of trust is an industry challenge which everyone has a duty to make sure it is institutionalized. That virtuoso moment in Digital Nigeria will not happen without it.
Few years ago, Nigerians used to have issues after making bank deposits. Some will return to their banks, only to be told there were no records of them making any deposit. What of the teller deposit receipt they went home with? That was fake, some banks would maintain. You may pity the banks; they are also victims whenever such happens. The teller had destroyed the bank’s evidence and went home with the depositor’s money.
In some other scenarios, the teller would modify the amount, creating a new class of problem. A man that had deposited N1.2 million would suddenly see N1 million credited in his statement. Though he had a teller receipt of N1.2 million, he would have to haggle to get the rest credited. Banks responded by asking customers to keep deposit slip duplicates in boxes, as evidence, in case issues emanated and reconciliations were needed. In some banks, customers were required to put the slips in two separate boxes and then register the deposit in a book which a bank staff has to sign off.
That was the case in Nigeria, until three Nigerian graduates took action. Obil Emetarom, Emeka Emetarom and Wale Onawunmi saved Nigerian banking from the problem explained above. Today, when you make a deposit, you get a printed receipt indicating the amount, time, branch location and other details. Three of them co-founded AppZone, which provides financial and banking solutions in Nigeria, and beyond. They pioneered common sense solutions in Nigeria’s modern banking. Indeed, solutions so common that most foreign players did not bother to sell such solutions to Nigerian banks
Obi is the CEO, a graduate of Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO); Emeka is also a graduate of FUTO. Across River Niger, from iconic Obafemi Awolowo University, is Wale who studied Computer Science with Economics. Both Obi and Emeka studied engineering in FUTO.
Obi Emetarom co-founded Parkway Projects in 2004 serving as pioneer Executive Director and playing a significant role in driving Parkway Projects to market leadership in the area of electronic payment solutions. In 2008 Obi co-founded AppZone with a focus on the broader view of providing technology to empower people with unlimited access to quality financial services. From inception Obi has led AppZone’s stellar growth and consequent emergence as Africa’s leading provider of home-grown Banking and Payment software.
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Emeka Emetarom is a Chemical Engineer with a bachelor of engineering degree from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. He has immense exposure in business management as well as the IT industry, at various levels. His entrepreneurial drive led to the setup of Ceerom Ventures, a table water production and manufacturing business enterprise which he co-founded in 2005. At the same time his passion for IT resulted in his foray into the electronic prepaid airtime distribution. In 2006, he championed the development of Nigeria’s premier mobile airtime distribution service. This gave birth to the RechargePlus® brand, a web and mobile based service for prepaid airtime purchase.
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Wale Onawunmi is a graduate of Computer Science with Economics from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he finished amongst the tops in his class, Wale is known as a Software Prodigy by many as he is versatile in many languages and software application packages. Wale has amassed more than ten years of experience in the modeling, design, and implementation of enterprise software. He has also been involved in intensive research in areas of electronic commerce and payment, portal
AppZone owns the BankOne brand which supports financial institutions including microfinance in Nigeria. They have increasingly moved into providing solutions in the areas of digital banking and insurance. AppZone is a very critical local player that helps institutions save and has a demonstrated record of delivering highly efficient solution even in cost-efficient model. Its technology makes it easy to enable debit card activation via USSD. That is why this company is great today.
AppZone is one of the leading fintech companies in Nigeria whose aim is to digitise the financial services industry. By going against the status quo of the brick and mortar system, AppZone continues to create technologies that will revolutionise the financial services industry. AppZone has two main products designed to help improve financial inclusion in the country. These products are BankOne and CreditClub.BankOne, an integrated Core Banking and E-channel software platform, was built by AppZone for the African environment.
The app is deployed centrally as a shared service on secure cloud infrastructure to manage operations and enable alternative service delivery channels for small retail Banks and Microfinance institutions.BankOne helps to reach out to the underbanked and unbanked in the community by digitising the financial services operations and also exposing them to multiple alternative channels such as ATMs, POS terminals, the Internet, Mobile phones and also independent agents
Today, AppZone is one of Africa’s leading provider of integrated banking and payment software platforms and incidentally creator of BankOne; a leading cloud infrastructure for banking and payment processing targeted at small and medium financial Institutions. It is hiring and has many open jobs in the engineering areas.
The Industry
The startup ecosystem in Nigeria is very noisy. Some have become lords purely because of the amount of money they raised. They have neither sold nor exited any company. They just raised capital and they party, publicly. From Forbes to circuits of conferences, we are inundated with stories of raising money from international and local investors in some of these companies. We surely like them and we treasure them, at least they pitched right and some people trusted them to risk their funds on them. It works like that in every part of the world.
That said, most of these companies making noise are years away from profitability. They may do well provided other entrants with fresh capital and new energy levels do not come and supplant them. But at the moment, we are not seeing that value creation, if value is profitability.
Understand that because of the difficulty of raising capital in Africa, when someone does, it becomes a very critical aspect of one’s resume. Few years ago, I watched a video of a South African conference where an entrepreneur was introduced by the amount of money he had raised from investors. Vinny Lingham of Yola and now Gyft and now Civic is noted as someone who raised more than $30M from investors. That tells you that success, for some, is really the amount raised!.
It is the same phenomenon in Lagos. The resumes of the Yaba entrepreneurs are now transmuting into how much money they have raised from the few angels and VCs and not necessarily how much value they have created. You see founders giving their companies away just in the name of claiming they have raised capital, even when that new capital is totally unnecessary. They court the rich people, with largely free equity, thinking that having a popular man in their board will magically solve all their business problems.
In Yankee, the focus is how much valuation does the startup have and most importantly how successful was the exit or IPO. But here, it is the amount the person raised. You can give away your company and get all the money in this world and technically own nothing. Only stupid investors will continue to buy that proposition.
That brings us to the real deal. Who are those building valuable companies and making money in Nigeria? You do not see them in talk circuits. They have no time for conferences. They do not even own blogs to waste time as I am doing here. They simply focus on building their companies. And they are doing well. They are displacing the Indian companies in Lagos with core innovation in providing technology in our key sectors. They are young and they are dynamic.
So, despite all the noise you may be reading about the local startup environment, the ones making money are very opaque. You need to work hard to see them. When all things are computed, one of the key ones with profitable business is AppZone. The founders may not have the noise-making skills of other entrepreneurs but they have the skills on how to create value. They are unlike me, trying to be a good entrepreneur – building companies, over writing articles!.
AppZone Innovation
AppZone works at an interface in finance where you cannot displace them easily. What they offer is so vital to their bank-clients and the banks’ customers. They are not looking for clients because they already have clients. They are executing massively well with teams of youthful people. Our recent conversations show they are big in insurance, oil & gas, power sector to provide a system that connect these firms and their customers for seamless payment experience. They go beyond payment to business process advancement by providing software that make operations work better. Paypal is not a threat to them. They will exist and can easily scale to become a viable IPO quality company in the local stock market. There are a couple of other firms in the nation, we will cover them in coming days.
Their BankOne product supports more than 300 microfinance banks in Nigeria. Many commercial banks are their customers. They have become the operating system that connects the banking sector with their customers, providing technologies that make ATMs work for us across Nigeria. They have key products, all created by them and none is a reseller for a foreign brand. That is the difference here – they are not working for one foreign company that collects bulk of the money at the end. They create their technology here in Lagos.
Small and Medium Scale Enterprises are the lifeblood of Nigeria’s economy and by extension, so are the Microfinance Banks that support them. However, for Micro-Finance Banks to remain competitive, achieve rapid growth, operate profitably, and make significant economic impact, they also need systems in place to support them as well. Appzone’s BankOne was created to do just that. Having recently signed its 300th Microfinance Bank onto the BankOne platform, the company says it is even more confident of making an indelible mark on the country’s economy.
South Africa’s Business Connexion invested $6 million in 2014 in AppZone. The company was noted to have taken 30% of AppZone at that time, implying at at far back as 2014, AppZone was in the neighborhood of $20 million valuation.
Months after acquiring document management firm, Panabiz Nigeria, JSE-listed Business Connexion Group (BCX) has strengthened its hold in Nigeria by acquiring 30 percent of financial IT service provider, AppZone Limited to enable it provide cloud-based solutions to the monetary sector.
Rounding Up
We do think AppZone is one of the most profitable technology startups in Lagos with its own technology and solutions. This is different from the re-sellers and integrators. These three founders have done us a great favour with their solutions which have become the industry leading brands. You expect a deposit receipt when you make a deposit in a bank in Nigeria today. You have to thank Obi, Emeka and Wale for that.
In 2011, we ran a very important article. Simply, we told Nigerian developers that Android will win over Blackberry, iOs, Symbian and Windows. It was a bold call because everything happening then was Blackberry. However, we saw real problems with every mobile OS in Nigeria but Android.
For the 2011 piece (available in web archive,reproduced below) which was titled “Nigerian Developers – Fasmicro says Focus on Android Platform”, we have the following predictions right:
We wrote thus: “We understand that Blackberry is popular today in Nigeria, but Android will eclipse it within the next few months”.
That turned out to be completely correct. We used that conviction, based on our model, to ask Nigerian developers to move into Android from Blackberry and Windows: “Now, you are a young graduate or a freelance who wants to get into the App business. You want to know what platform to build”
In our analysis, we focused on affordability of the product: “Another reason has to do with market. Apple and Blackberry are premium…Android gadgets are more affordable simply because you do not have to pay for any software – it is free by default”. We correctly predicted that cost will help Android adoption in Nigeria and that was what happened.
Then we made a very bold statement:
In the next 6 months, the number of Android devices in Nigeria will eclipse all the Apple and Blackberry combined. Our studies show that customers MTN will make this possible with its advertising power and brand. Etisalat did not make much impact with Galaxy Tab because of the cost. Even myPad from Starcomms is built on Android. Of course, Fasmicro and Microscale new Ovim Plus and Ovim MiE are all Android devices. Encipher Inye and Inye 2 are also Android. They will compete against the high premium Blackberry and will surely win. The notion that iPad can do well in Nigeria is not supported by any data. It is expensive and that brand is not structured for the Nigerian market.
It happened because iOS did not pick up while Blackberry collapsed. Today, Nigeria is an Android nation.
If you check carefully, we had noted the present Etisalat Nigeria problem as far back as 2011: products were expensive. “Etisalat did not make much impact with Galaxy Tab because of the cost. “. That is the same issue today where it is losing more customers despite having the best QoS. The reality is that you have to understand the purchasing power of your customers and price things more practically.
Another great prediction that turned out correct
In Nigeria, Android has a potential to get to 70% of the market with Glo selling Galaxy when MTN, Etisalat and Starcomms have aligned in that direction. If you want to make money developing, focus on Android – you will have more users and market globally and locally.
The risk of Blackberry was clear:
Blackberry could lose appeal if its hardware fails to wow consumers. Same applies to Apple. But for Android, there are legions working on it. One fails, others will succeed and you are sure of users for your Apps.
Our conviction was on the open nature of Android:
Android Open Source: This platform is free from all those difficult clauses that stymie innovations and speed for OEM. … This kind of neutrality makes the future of Android promising. No player will like to kick others out and let the phone companies focus on ergonomics and design while the software is handled by the global legion. That is a place to be over being restricted to an OS that is developed maybe by few guys in one giant building in California or Canada. Innovation lives here and it can easily improve faster than other OS.
Our final recommendation from that piece
If you are a young developer that wants to start developing Apps, now is the time to make a decision. Use Android as your platform. It is better and will surely succeed in Nigeria.
It is always good to check how past predictions have turned out, to help guide future ones. This type of insight on technology drives what we do for clients in our Fasmicro Group where a unit offers technology advisory services.
The article is reproduced below
Nigerian Developers – Fasmicro says Focus on Android Platform
By Tekedia EditorsApril 5, 20116 Comments
In the last few weeks, Fasmicro (tekedia is a division of Fasmicro) has received emails from potential customers asking us if we could do developments on iOS and Blackberry platforms which are respectively Apple and Blackberry mobile operating systems. (We are yet to get calls on Windows Mobile. Of course Symbian is now history). We politely told them that we have built capacity in Android and we do not want to expand into these platforms. As the foremost Android trainer in Owerri and perhaps the whole of Eastern Nigeria, we have a regular base of customers to serve from universities, freelance and corporate institutions; we have started first and could define the roadmap. We understand that Blackberry is popular today in Nigeria, but Android will eclipse it within the next few months.
Now, you are a young graduate or a freelance who wants to get into the App business. You want to know what platform to build. We have a direction and suggestion. And these are some reasons why you should focus on Android development in Nigeria
Universities
It is already penetrating into the schools. For universities we have provided trainings and training right now like Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Federal University of Technology Owerri, we have made a mark that their preferred choice of mobility computing is Android. We made the decision and they are adapting their curricula into the platform. We are so confident that these students upon graduation will possibly decide to concentrate on Android platforms. So the people you will hire are already trained on Android. Why bother with another platform?
Affordability
Another reason has to do with market. Apple and Blackberry are premium. Nigeria may not need them at the lower class of the market. Sure, the bank CEOs and corporate titans can afford them, but the regular Aba trader and Ibadan driver may prefer something cheaper. Android provides that platform for affordable mobile systems. Our studies before we made Ovim tablet (with our partner, Microscale) show that the future of smartphone and tablet in Nigeria lies in the mass market and not serving the 2% richest Nigerians as NITEL did for decades. Android gadgets are more affordable simply because you do not have to pay for any software – it is free by default. So the equipment manufactures and chipset makers are free from those contracts that, for example Windows Mobile, will tie your hands.
Android Market Share
In the next 6 months, the number of Android devices in Nigeria will eclipse all the Apple and Blackberry combined. Our studies show that customers MTN will make this possible with its advertising power and brand. Etisalat did not make much impact with Galaxy Tab because of the cost. Even myPad from Starcomms is built on Android. Of course, Fasmicro and Microscale new Ovim Plus and Ovim MiE are all Android devices. Encipher Inye and Inye 2 are also Android. They will compete against the high premium Blackberry and will surely win. The notion that iPad can do well in Nigeria is not supported by any data. It is expensive and that brand is not structured for the Nigerian market.
Globally, Apple has more users but Android ships more phones every day than any other OS, currently. We project that Android will take a very commanding lead in the mobile ecosystem after Dec 2011. In Nigeria, Android has a potential to get to 70% of the market with Glo selling Galaxy when MTN, Etisalat and Starcomms have aligned in that direction. If you want to make money developing, focus on Android – you will have more users and market globally and locally.
OEM-Independent
Android is not tied to any hardware maker or original equipment manufacturer (OEM). This makes it very great. Blackberry could lose appeal if its hardware fails to wow consumers. Same applies to Apple. But for Android, there are legions working on it. One fails, others will succeed and you are sure of users for your Apps.
Android Open Source
This platform is free from all those difficult clauses that stymie innovations and speed for OEM. All you need is buy a chipset, download the OS and you can get a tablet or phone out in two weeks. Mediatek has made things very easy (Fasmicro and Microscale use Mediatek for our tablets) – you just focus on manufacturing after configuring the chipset. The good aspect is that with good electricity in Nigeria, one can buy the chipsets and make phones and tablets in Nigeria easily. Fasmicro and Microscale are moving to ARM based chipsets to ensure we can support and upgrade easily later.
This kind of neutrality makes the future of Android promising. No player will like to kick others out and let the phone companies focus on ergonomics and design while the software is handled by the global legion. That is a place to be over being restricted to an OS that is developed maybe by few guys in one giant building in California or Canada. Innovation lives here and it can easily improve faster than other OS.
Android Apps Distribution
Got a good app, you can have it in the Android market within days for just a small fee. Apple will ask for 4x of that and you will still wait for weeks.
Evolution
Why the world has to wait for few special days in the year for Apple to release new devices, Android does that every day in China and across the globe. This makes the evolution of Android fluidic and deeper than others.
Java/Linux
Android is Java and Linux – two great platforms for developments. You might have known Java and going into Android is a piece of cake. Java is matured and the guy that built it is just going to Google now. There is no information you cannot find online for Java – the books are there, the tutorials, the demos, etc. And when it is time to say bye to Android, you take your Java skill to other areas. But for Apple, you are stuck with Objective C which Apple invented and you may not get much help.
Our recommendations
If you are a young developer that wants to start developing Apps, now is the time to make a decision. Use Android as your platform. It is better and will surely succeed in Nigeria. Fasmicro is running a free training now on Android App development. Due to demand, we will do the same next week and we welcome you to attend. We were rated Excellent by all our trainees and we are confident you will find our training to be world class. We have a founder who is a first rate engineer and professor and has built a team and teaching structure that delight our customers.
For all the enthusiasm about the Nigerian technology scene, one thing has not happened – Nigeria is yet to have a unicorn, a private company, largely technology firm, with a valuation of at least a billion U.S. dollars. Sure, the prospect of having a unicorn could be correlated with the size of the economy and the absence of it does not necessarily mean Nigeria is not trying hard enough. It is easier for U.S. to have many unicorns because the “economic forest” is so big to accommodate such special animal breeds. U.S. economy is in excess of $18.4 trillion while Nigeria hovers around $400 billion – a multiple of 46.
Nevertheless, in this season of economic diversification pontification, it is important to discuss the state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and Nigeria’s path to breeding the special animal. With the connectivity and trans-border capabilities that information technology has provided in the world, the creation of innovative companies should not necessarily be discussed within the constructs of geography. As cloud computing redesigns the world of technology, anyone, anywhere, ideally could compete from any location on earth. This means that one does not have to be living in U.S., India, Western Europe, Japan or China to create a unicorn. So, Nigerian entrepreneurs do not have a really valid reason for having not bred the animal in their garages or labs.
Good ideas like success have relations while bad ones are orphans. This means any Nigerian entrepreneur with a really transformative idea can see it scale globally and create enormous wealth for its stakeholders. The domicile to generate such ideas is now irrelevant because knowledge is freely shared as Internet has collapsed boundaries and provided means for people to collaborate seamlessly. Also, markets are now more accessible that an entrepreneur can design in one country with its main market in another.
Israel with its history of creating innovative technology companies has always seen U.S. as its primary market. Nigerian entrepreneurs can have the same philosophy. The problem though is not the understanding of the markets, rather, on the technical capabilities to engineer products and services with cross-border appeals.
An entrepreneur in Niger Republic with its $7.2 billion economy cannot ideally breed a unicorn if it focuses solely on Niger Republic. But when it looks outside for its market, it improves its chances. But entrepreneurs in South Africa and Nigeria have the right markets for them to create unicorns as the economies are relatively larger. The question then is why we are not close? Let us look at Nigeria data.
Case Studies
Interswitch, which processes payments for banks and owns a brand of debit cards in Nigeria, is one of the top technology brands in Nigeria. The company was rumored for an IPO in London few years ago. When Helios invested $96 million in 2010 for 52% stake, the company was many multiples away from being a unicorn. When you consider that E-Transact, a major competitor, has a market capitalization of N20.5 billion (about $68 million) in the Nigerian Stock Exchange, one will expect Interswitch valuation to have been fully priced when Helios invested. The fundamentals in the market have not changed for a revision to hit $1 billion.
Besides Interswitch, Konga is another important local technology company. Konga is worth less than $40 million according to public data from its Swedish investors. Jumia (through its then parent, Africa Internet Group) was once heralded as an African company that became a unicorn when it was valued slightly more than $1 billion. But shortly after that, Nigeria went into recession. The fact remains that Jumia is not really an African company. It is an European firm operating in Africa. Today, its valuation is certainly lower.
The big tech news is the recent torrent of capital to Africa Internet Group (AIG)—which owns online retailer Jumia and 9 other e-ventures.
Yesterday AIG announced €300 million ($326 million) in funding from backers including Goldman Sachs and MTN. CEO Sacha Poignonnec confirmed the new financing brings company equity to €1.005bn ($1.08bn). This clears the hurdle for AIG to become Africa’s first startup unicorn.
While the company would not provide a full round breakdown, it includes the €75 million ($83 million) AXA Insurance commitmentTechCrunch recently reported. AIG’s best funded ecommerce startup Jumia received over $200 million from 2012-2014 and is valued at $555 billion.
The present currency crises, forex scarcity, etc will continue to impact these companies negatively in the Nigerian market which is their largest.
For Pagatech, despite the parade of high quality investors, the firm cannot have a market valuation of more than $100 million when public-traded E-Transact is at $68 million, a close competitor. Pagatech has pivoted from its initial mobile money business to all kinds of electronic payment gateways. Though it has seen its business grown, processing more than a $1 billion in transactions, the market has become more competitive with Konga moving into the sector and foreign entrants like Paystack, Remita, Flutterwave, etc all moving into the domain of facilitating and enabling electronic payments in Nigeria.
The success of SystemSpecs on Remita which processes payments for federal government and its parastatals in Nigeria indicates that the bulk of the profits are outside the reach of Interswitch, Pagatech and others since the public spending at federal level is a big part of the economy. Losing Nigerian Customs, Securities and Exchange Commission, Corporate Affairs Commission, Industrial Training Fund, etc will mean Pagatech and others will have to focus on the private sector.
Incidentally, there is the one technology company in Nigeria the blogosphere does not write a lot, that owner of Remita. That is the SystemSpecs. SystemSpecs is an old company founded by one of the leading technology pioneers in Nigeria. He has more success than anyone in the technology sector in Nigeria at least within the constructs of creating value in the market. John Obaro, the Managing Director, has penetrated every corner of Nigeria’s economy with his products. He is known in governments and he has internal capital to finance PPPs (public private partnerships) which gives his company an advantage over start-ups. That advantage will be strategic as crude oil price continues to fall cushioning governments to seek partners that can fund projects and share revenue. The Remita business model came from that ideology – one that will drive the future in public sector at federal and state levels. How much does SystemSpecs worth? We put it at around $100 million because of the Remita contract with the Nigerian government.
Why? Because the public-traded technology integrator, Computer Warehouse Group is valued at $22 million. Though CWG does not compete directly with SystemSpecs, there is an indirect component since CWG specializes in representing foreign companies which offer similar services to what SystemSpecs offers. So, the $100 million we have for SystemSpecs is even generous. We had advocated that both companies “merge”.
Together SystemSpecs and CWG can go far. But one is public while the other is private. So largely, only reverse merge can work here. Another is pure acquisition but do not go there. Certainly SystemsSpec is worth more than $22 million the market assigns to CWG Plc, making any talk of acquisition baseless. We also believe that CWG is more than what the market is valuing it, as has noted above.
For Omatek, Zinox and similar companies like Task Systems, the individual market valuation is below $50 million despite their obvious local popularities. Public-traded Omatek is valued at $5 million. The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has a reputation of diminishing the value of technology companies. It is either the analysts do not understand their values or that the companies have not produced results good enough to change that trajectory; both are of course interrelated.
Moving to the travel and transportation start-ups, Wakanow and Hotels.ng, the best optimistic valuations for these companies will be maximum of $10 million. Hotels.ng is rumored to have raised its last fund from Omidyar Network and EchoVC at about $4 million valuation. Wakanow, an online travel agent, sees competitions from all angles from Jovago to Trivago.
Kuluya, a game company, is valued at $2 million (This company is largely muted now.) Jobberman, the recruitment firm, which was acquired by One Africa Media got out early. Knowing that One Africa Media which owns Jobberman, Cheki, Private Property and other companies has a valuation of $557 million, we deduce the local firms are not even close to being a unicorn. ToLet, Dealdey, NGCareers, Drinks.ng, Oya, and Gloong are promising but none is estimated to be worth up to $10 million yet. Printivo.com, the Nigerian online printing start-up that closed a seed round with EchoVC for the $200 million Nigerian printing sector is estimated to have a valuation of $1.3 million.
Possibly, you are waiting for us to get to the big one – iROKO Partners, the big money-raiser from Tiger Global and others until Konga crashed the records with $25 million. We value iROKO Partners for $100 million largely because of its investment holdings in OgaVenue and other firms besides the iROKO brands. And AppZone which is very profitable in which South-Africa’s Business Connexion invested $6 million in 2014 is worth about $25 million.
There are other companies like Paystack, Flutterwave (American, technically though), and African Courier Express which Interswitch invested. In these and others we had left, one is close to $20 million in valuation, based on our estimate. In short $20 million is very generous when you recall that Paystack raised $1.3 million seed from many investors. They could not be taking anything less than 10% for that investment.
Andela, Wild Fusion and Slot Systems are great companies. Andela which has raised at least $41 million is a top-rate firm. Using peer U.S. firms and discounting its regional operation in Africa (investors do this, unfortunately), we put the valuation at $140 million. Wild Fusion and Slot Systems, individually, will command less than $10 million.
Nigeria; now what next? We are on track but still far from seeing a unicorn. We need the entrepreneurial hunters desperately to kill a unicorn because the earlier we can parade one in the Eagle Square Abuja, the easier it will become to have foreign and local investors come to the funding party. Let’s do it!
You surely have better perspectives on these numbers. The place below is the square to make your case.
