‘Nigeria among Fastest Developing Mobile Marketing Globally’ – Evens

Mr. Steven Evans, Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat Nigeria has described Mobile marketing in West Africa and Nigeria, in particular as one of the fastest developing markets in the world, with mobile as a marketing channel fast gaining grounds with potentials of opening up opportunities for brands and marketers in the region to engage better with their consumers. He stated this at a two day Mobile Marketing Summit sponsored by Etisalat Nigeria, in Lagos recently, the telecoms Chief expressed the company’s excitement to be participating in and sponsoring the Mobile Marketing Summit. He said, ‘We are part of summit because we feel it will deliver great value and education to our local industry by successfully using mobile to connect, engage and sell to customers in a way that will ensure their trust.’ He further added that the planned launch of the Mobile Marketing Association West Africa Council would act as a catalyst to enable the industry to work together in driving mobile marketing in the region forward, create the key building blocks for a sustainable, growing and profitable mobile medium, provide a forum for converging the opinions and interests of all the key stakeholder groups, develop an implementation capability and protect the legitimate concerns of the mobile consumer. Also speaking at the summit, Victor Munyaua, Head, Commercial Relations, Sub-Saharan Africa, Google, commended Etisalat for taking the lead in closing the gap, through the creation of a platform to address the challenges limiting the mobile market penetration. He explained, ‘Three major trends that will define the future of mobile market are social, location and commerce. Global statistics show that 60 percent of consumers who access the internet in different countries including Nigeria do so from mobile devices”. He further stated that with only two per cent African content and 10 per cent of African businesses connected to the mobile platform, it was important that businesses in Nigeria get the platform, generate local content in building the mobile market ecosystem to keep the user on-line while taking advantage of other opportunities. The Summit held at the Civic centre was geared towards establishing a professional mobile medium in West Africa, while focusing on making the case for the mobile medium drawing on the experiences of international experts familiar with emerging markets. The Summit was also used as a platform, to the launch the Mobile Marketing Association West Africa Council, as it drew top industry experts and professionals from different West African countries.