had written an earlier article expounding on the business sectors I foresaw achieving a reasonable growth and activity level tech wise in Nigeria in the just past year 2013. At the prompting of someone whose opinion I value a lot I am doing a review below to access how far the tech development went in each of those sectors.
In that article I mentioned areas like e-commerce, online entertainment distribution, job search/online recruitment, work collaboration/outsourced services, and education.
Now onto how they all fared in 2013;
E-commerce
In my article I acknowledged that the e-commerce sector was (and I think it still is) the most vibrant and aggressive among all emerging tech business sectors in Nigeria. I also predicted that 2013 would be a year of more innovative battles in the e-commerce sector and stated that e-commerce offerings will expand beyond Lagos to other parts of the country.
2013 was a year of huge battles between the two behemoths – Jumia and Konga – while numerous other e-commerce startups sprang up each aiming to take a bite of the market share.
Huge sums of money were raised and acquisitions were made in the sector. 2014 promises to be even scarier.
Growth & Activity Rating: 7/10
Online Entertainment Distribution
2013 was an eventful year for entertainment distribution startups. The music distribution sub-sector witnessed ups and downs with the notable downs being the retirement of Gbedufm, the near comatose of Iroking (well, at a point).
The roughness and huge capital needs of this sector (especially the movie distribution aspect) did not deter a lot of new entrants. MTN even got into the fray with Dobox. IrokoTv looked the leader everyone wanted to be brought down but even they closed the year with an $8 million funding round. That sums it up; the sector was super crazy in 2013 and looks to continue in same vein this year.
Growth & Activity Rating: 6/10
Job Search/Recruitment
Nothing much happened in this sector even as several more new kids entered the fray. Jobberman appears to be leading followed by Ngcareers and then a host of other job search startups.
2014 may well be the year the sector gets the disruption it’s been waiting for.
Growth & Activity Rating: 4/10
Freelance/Work Collaboration/Outsourced Services
A few entrants came into the scene but very little disruption was made. This could be due to the fact that this is a really virgin area in Nigeria and would require a lot of work for appreciable impact to be made.
This is one sector to watch out for in 2014.
Growth & Activity Rating: 3/10
Education
One unique thing with the education tech sector is its apparent wide scope of coverage from e-learning, testing to research and networking. Several online course providers for the tertiary levels have come on board promising to provide cheaper alternative online education courses to students.
It remains to be seen how much traction they get. However I still think education is a sector to watch as when things really get moving it could be mighty exciting.
Growth & Activity Rating: 3/10
What’s your take? Tweet @VenturesAfrica or leave your comments below…
