Airtel Nigeria Doubles Data on Infinix, Tecno and Itel Smartphones

Mobile operator Airtel Nigeria has announced a strategic partnership with Chinese device manufacturers Infinix, Tecno and Itel. Under the partnership, customers who purchase a new Infinix, Tecno or Itel smartphone will enjoy an exclusive Airtel Double Data Offer for a six-month period. The offer allows customers to enjoy twice the value of any data plan they purchase on their newly-acquired smartphones. For instance, if customers buy the NGN 1,000.00 (US $2.76) monthly data plan on any of the participating smartphones, they get 3 GB instead of 1.5 GB of data. The offer is available to both new and existing customers of Airtel.
 
Budget smartphones, often manufactured in China, have made very significant inroads into the global smartphone market, especially in developing economies but by no means limited to those. In any market, it is often worth an operator’s while (and investment) to get smartphones into the hands of as many subscribers as possible, on the grounds that once they have the devices, those customers will use them to consumer ever-increasing amounts of mobile data.
 
In developed markets where most users already have smart devices, such concerns are less pressing than in developing ones where data consumption is the province of a small minority of mobile customers. As of May 2018, Nigeria had a smartphone penetration of 18.5 percent, so the market has a long way to go before it reaches the saturation point. Giving current feature-phone subscribers and non-subscribers an incentive to purchase a cheap smartphone will pay dividends by driving data revenue to the mobile operator that does so.
 
Other than ensuring that the price of the device is sufficiently low, an operator can incentivize users by discounting data. A two-for-the-price-of-one data deal could be an effective incentive, considering that it is directly targeted at the functionality of the device in question, and given that it will cost the operator relatively little. So in that sense, Airtel’s Double Data Offer could well have the desired effect of converting more mobile users to data users. The fact that this is a partnership not with one device manufacturer, as is usual, but with three makes it even more persuasive, as giving consumers the choice they increasingly demand.
 
However, since at least a good number of the people Airtel is targeting with this offer are currently not using any data at all, and are therefore newcomers to the whole concept of mobile data, a double data offer may be less attractive that it would be to users who already know the value of a megabyte.

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African Telcoms: Users Value Content as Much as Cost When Choosing Devices

Panelists from TECNO, Millicom, Airtel Africa and Mozilla, who spoke at the 17th annual AfricaCom conference that was held in Cape Town, South Africa on 11 November through 13 November, said that mobile device purchasers in Africa prefer getting the best value for their money over getting the least expensive handset. The panel members made these comments as they discussed how to encourage a greater pan-African uptake of smartphones. According to Millicom’s commercial director for Africa, Paul Martinez, available content is a crucial element for customers. He also said that users need to be educated about data and what they can achieve with smartphones.

Mobile phone adoption has been quickly outpacing income growth in many African countries. At the end of 2013, 65 percent of households in 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa had at least one mobile phone. After Asia, the region is the second-largest mobile technology market, and it has potential for a lot more growth. The GSMA forecasts that mobile users in sub-Saharan Africa will reach 346 million by 2017. Mobile phone technology has transformed the lives of many Africans with everything from farming to banking. It is a major factor in driving economic growth in many African nations and has aided in the development of a burgeoning middle class in some countries.

In recent times as many MNOs have been upgrading their infrastructure to enable 3G/4G service, smartphones are slowly replacing lower-end feature phones, and this process could speed up if users became more aware of what can be done with data when infrastructures have been upgraded. We have written about several mobile operators in Africa bundling social media apps with plans in order to give subscribers a taste of data use and possibly upsell them packages with larger allowances. We have also written about bundling desired content services with plans as a way to increase sales. In many of these developing nations, it is important that local content be included that is tailored to the needs of its customers. Mobile operators, in a market such as Africa, should seriously consider the panel’s overall statement that operators as well as manufacturers need to play a role in getting more people to use data-enabled devices, as inexpensive smartphones begin to enter the market. It is important for operators not to put the cart before the horse; data plans will not sell if devices cannot support them.

“Although the African continent is one of the fastest growing in terms of mobile technology, and it boasts a number of fast-growing economies, many Africans still live below globally-recognized poverty levels. So even though mobile phones are connecting individuals across urban/rural and rich/poor divides, certain users are very cost-conscious, and their handset and plan purchases reflect this, with many subscribers buying multiple SIM cards to be shared among family members. While it is true that the functionality of data with lower-end smartphones will hook some African users on these devices and larger data plans, economic status will still play a major role in customer choices.”

Kamely Hayes,

Managing Editor,

The Tarifica Alert

The above item appeared in a recent issue of The Tarifica Alert, a weekly resource that analyzes noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. To access all of the latest articles and issues or to speak with the research team: http://www.tarifica.com/contactus.aspx