Mobile Apps are really changing the way people communicate, work and play. At the global level, app development has grown into a massive, profitable industry estimated to be worth over 120 billion dollars by 2016, according to Ovum and Gartner, who hinted also that apps are winning over mobile web.

Even in Nigeria, the trend is catching-on, but challenges before apps developers are innumerable.

Most of the publicity and media spotlights currently fall on superstar consumer apps like such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, BBM, etc.

These success stories have certainly highlighted the massive scale and revenue potential of mobile apps, reaching from zero to billions of users in record-breaking time.

Recently, market research firm, Gartner, estimates that this year alone, mobile users across the globe will pay more than $25 billion to buy “mobile applications”, games, social net-working tools, productivity and entertainment-based mini programmes for mobile phones despite the fact that 80 per cent of these will be free downloads this year.

So far, apps have become the business with the fastest turnaround time in the software industry.

Of course, the obvious success of international apps like twitter, facebook, WassApp, EverNote, etc, has contributed to lure young Nigerians to the space.

These have helped people who have ideas see how that one simple app can become a global player in business. Now, people are taking apps or software development as a career.

Although, it is one that still in its infancy, but about five years ago it was not, probably, as common and for obvious reasons. We have seen App brands like BudgIT, Traclist, Efiko, Jobs In Nigeria, WeCyclers, Genii Games and Maliyo Games come out from Co-Creation Hub Nigeria and they are trending.

However, the state of technology, generally, in Nigeria is still not a way of life.

That whole space of application development or software industry is one that is gradually growing, because people are beginning to see more, opportunities that exist.

The odious task of making people realize how important it is to their lives holds the fulcrum to swing the ball afar.

There are glisters of hope in the industry.

For instance, Mr. Tobi Asehinde, chief executive officer, Vibe Web Solutions Limited, told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, that there is a huge potential in app development in the Nigeria Market, especially the mobile applications because of the presence of low cost smartphone manufacturers that run Android OS.

Etching to 200 million connected lines and over 132 million active lines according to NCC statistics, it is unarguable that mobile application development has a huge potential.

Well, this is a good market share number for any mobile application owner to leverage on.

Asehinde cited TNS Africa and Middle statistics which shows that 25% of mobile line subscribers use smart phone meaning, developing an app relevant to this 25% which a population of over 25 million people is already a ready market and bargaining power. “The interesting part of the trend is that this number is growing exponentially every year,” he said.

Essentially, consumer apps are trending, however, the game changers will become enterprise apps, as organisations of all shapes and sizes are integrating mobile apps within their business processes.

This mobilisation creates a demand for off-the-shelf or custom mobile apps and services, translating into new and bigger opportunities for mobile app developers.

The Vibe Web’s CEO subscribed to this as “growing number of businesses now depend on apps like Box, Evernote and Trello to help them be more productive in their work.

Enterprises are now allowing employees to use the apps they love at work, inside the corporate Intranet. These are fanning up the desires in many young Nigerian developers to queue-in and make changes in our environment”. 

Statistics are hard to come by on the financial worth of the Nigeria’s apps market, however, Mr. Tunji Eleso, director of Incubation, Co-Creation Hub (Cc-Hub), Nigeria also told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, optimistically that, there are prospects that soon locally developed apps will fly at the international arena, creating employments, and will shoot up the IT contributions to the nation’s gross domestic project exponentially.

He believes the notion that app publishers that target business and productivity markets have a much better chance of generating sustainable revenue than those targeting consumer markets.

“We should not forget that, although, about four year ago everybody was interested in cloning. For instance, Facebook for students, Facebook for Nigerians or Facebook for traders, it became quite obvious that it will not work, because Facebook is unique; they have the power and machinery to make it a global business. Gradually, people are shifting away from that towards solving local problems. That is why we are seeing a lot of prospects on applications that can compete globally,” he added.

He swiftly affirmed that prospects in the industry revolve round identifying challenges in one’s immediate environment, regional, Africa as a Continent; then the global relevance cannot be denied.

Eleso said, “For instance, the Tropal app, a fitness and life-style application has the potentials to serve the global market, because it is helping in galvanizing a community of people who are interested in fitness. That is locally identifiable problem, but it can be easily spotted across the globe. The truth is that scalability of the business is important; if you must play at the international arena, you cannot just be locally minded.

On how apps developers make their money, Mr. Yinka Adenaike, application Service Delivery Manager of Vibe Web Solutions Limited, said making money as a app developer is very straight forward, “you either charge for developing for others or you develop one for yourself targeting a good market niche and leverage on numbers of users of your app to get advertising revenues however, if your app is an essential tool then you can charge for each download. Basically you can even go as far charge for subscription especially if it is a mobile application for a magazine”.

But, Eleso thinks enterprise application is an interesting area. Apparently, a lot of people are not very aware of it for obvious reasons.

“So, when you have a solution that works, you need the link to be able to get into the organizations. For those in the consumer-goods-service such as good tracking, and things like that, are what people are thinking of doing. Therefore, the right network to get into places like the oil and gas industry to help with their operations or the banking sector; some people are doing it for a while, but in the current dispensation, a few people are beginning to think about enterprise apps as the way forward. Even though the market pays, but it is a very smaller market that requires technical know-how and the ability to know link up,” he added.

Literally speaking, there have been interventions to help app developers heave sigh of relief, nevertheless, the journey has not been palatable for start-ups, basically for societal misunderstanding of the relevance.

For example, the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology launched the National ICT Incubation Programme tagged Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator (iDEA) in Lagos and Cross River States; original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Samsung, Nokia, Tecno, and data & cloud management companies like Google, IBM, Microsoft, and network providers-MTN, MainOne, etc., have at some points intervened.

More so, private incubation hubs are not giving up, yet it remains a drop of water in an ocean.

As shocking as it may sound, Nigeria cannot boost of having at anytime, 50-100 app developers working on a particular project at same time.

To add insult to the injury, many government agencies are out of touch with technology, thus, they view anyone coming around as a threat.

Mr. Peter Ihesie, chief executive officer of ComplurTech, told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek how the Nigerian Police Force and societal disbelieve initially truncated the launch of iPolice app. iPolice was developed by Ihesie and his team last year as a community policing application.

Ihesie, while alluding to the growth potentials of the industry, said, “I will say that the industry is gradually growing. People are beginning to appreciate the importance of apps and with the increase in adoption of mobile devices especially the low cost devices that are hitting the market. We foresee a lot more adoption. It has been encouraging compare to what it has been in the last three years.

The future of the industry lies on the shoulders of the younger generation. They are growing up, meeting the mobile devices. They way they interact with the devices, is entirely different from the way the older generation do.

We are looking at the exactly the way they are going: gaming, enterprise; in any case, the industry has shown glisters of a multi-million dollar strength in Nigeria.

“The issue we had in the process of developing i-Police app revolved around data. It is a data intensive application. It is a personal security application that allows users access to all police contacts, emergency numbers of all the States; security situations around your neighbourhood: office, home, in fact, it is a community policing app. But the issue of data gathering to feed the app was challenging.

“If you go to the websites of relevant agencies you can get enough facts, figures or current issues addressed. Even when we contacted some police stations, they were like we are treats to them, but this is such an app they need to make their operations easy.

“Organizations that understand that technology has come to stay are now open to change. That is why those who got the hint earlier are ahead of others. For instance, GTBank is one that understands the essence of mobile apps and they quickly integrated it into their system. Today, they are recognized as the smartest bank in Nigeria. No sector should be left behind”.

To Eleso, scaling is a challenge and will continue to pose challenges in the sub-sector, because the know-how is still the biggest challenge in the market.

“Skills: people having the fundamental skills to tackle challenges and the skills to build or turn them to what people can consume. It is the biggest challenge because our university system is still not really producing talents at the rate that will help the ecosystem scale. Those we are celebrating like IrokoTv, IbakaTv, Jobberman, etc, are self-motivated. They took the time, burnt the mid-night candles to learn what they are producing today. That is not a scalable model; what we need is such that from the Secondary School level people are taught.

“That way they can take the skills and build things. I don’t think I have a team of 50-100 developers working on a particular solution. The truth is that you cannot find them in that kind of number. To develop a solution for global relevance requires a lot of skills, the OEMs giving trainings and for people to see apps or software development as a career”.

Speaking from experience, Adenaike backed up Eleso’s remarks, hence he said, the challenges faced by mobile developers are mainly around (organic) discovery and acquisition as well as retention and monetization.

“However,” he said, “This is a core issue that depends on your business idea, strategy and customer lifecycle marketing strategy. The problem here is that many app developers focus on acquisitions only rather than a process that put all four into consideration discovery, acquisition, retention and monetize. The major or end goal is to monetize, however, the idea needs to be one that would bring people back to your app, it has to be essential or encourage retention then only would your discovery and acquisition strategy yield good returns and numbers for monetizing”.

Way forward

Just as it is with social apps, it’s about analytics with mobile apps. “When you’re competing with hundreds of thousands of other mobile apps (and short user attention span), you need to figure out the essential triggers quickly.

What appeals to your highest lifetime value (LTV) users–that is, those who are more likely to spend and spread the word about your product with their friends and family? How can you keep them more engaged? What makes them return? You need to answer these questions and leverage on them,” Adenaike.

Actually, Nigeria expect that in the next three to five years the IT industry would have tripled its contribution to the nation’s GDP, because it is one area youths can be engaged.

With the right support and mentoring, it can become a very viable force for employment generation, which is another area we must look at beyond contribution to the GDP.

Also, like Eleso said, “The more you create interesting applications; technology becomes a way of life for the general masses. People still do not consume technology as a way of life and that needs to happen. The sub-sector has potentials to rival other sectors of the economy”.

It still falls back on education, education and education, which remains the currency to buy a lucrative tomorrow. Universities should start thinking of replacing boring lecture sessions with CodeCamps, to say the least.