Kenya continues to do well in the mobile apps sector and arguably is Africa’s leading nation in that. Its share of the Nokia Ovi Store has grown more than 2400% since it launched in April 2010 only two apps. Today, it has excess of 50 apps. Interestingly, some of these apps are doing pretty well. The one on cars is really cool.
You may think we are counting quantity here. No, these apps are clean and very ready for primetime. They range from game to productivity to anytime you can imagine. And they are largely locally inspired, meaning they do not compete with the behemoths from Silicon Valley and likes. They stay in their domains and cover their flanks.
Nokia East and Southern Africa General Manager, Kenneth Oyolla, has noted this trend and stated:
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“The Ovi Store now has apps with content ranging from news and job offers to social media and mobile commerce. These are interesting times for developers and application users in Kenya and trends continue to change every day,” said Kenneth Oyolla,
“The positive trend is that the rise in the number of applications is satisfying increasing demand for locally relevant content especially in Kenya. Users of Nokia handsets in Kenya accounted for 60 percent of these downloads in East and Southern Africa between July 2010 and October 2010. This steady growth both on the demand and the supply side is a positive development in the overall growth of mobile apps as well as increasing revenues for developers.”
Africa continues its good momentum to define its space in the mobile ecosystem. They are coming with local ideas and making progress in this business. In East Africa, especially Kenya, Africa gets the window and trial lab for new ideas on mobile commerce, mobile payments and mobile productivity tools. Kenya is the leader but that position is being challenged by Nigeria and South Africa. In general, Africa has a positive progression in this arena.
“For now the potential for growth seems to be unlimited because there’s a huge demand coming from an ever increasing number of mobile phone internet users. This means that developers have an opportunity to create locally relevant apps” said Mr Oyolla.