In the absence of developed infrastructure, Africa’s burgeoning high-tech sector is looking for ways to facilitate entrepreneurship outside of the traditional means. Mobile phone payments may be the next step.
In Nigeria, the acute success here for both tech start-ups and more conventional businesses such as banks and fast food restaurants means adapting to the age of what entrepreneurs have dubbed the “100 per cent mobile-first market”. Across Africa, smartphones have begun to transform the way Africans live and work. The continent is projected to have 360m smartphones by 2025, when internet penetration on the continent will hit 50 per cent, according to McKinsey Consultants. As smartphones become more affordable to lower-income Nigerians, tech companies that initially entered the market with web-based solutions are seeing a wave of possibilities unlocked by the device. Data in Nigeria is still expensive for the majority of the major population, costing the equivalent of about $5 a gigabyte.

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