For most digital technology sectors, the best Growth Model begins by modelling that you have about 30 million potential customers in Nigeria. Forget the 200 million population; most of our citizens do not earn anything or they earn so little to register practically in any decent digital growth strategy. If you focus on how to win from these 30 million people, your model becomes more realistic.
Uber has close to 50 million users in U.S. (pop of excess of 320 million). It will take more efforts for Uber to hit 2 million in Nigeria in a population of 200 million because technically Uber’s total effective addressable market in Nigeria is just about 30 million people. (Uber has about 267,000 monthly riders in Nigeria: “Transportation network company, Uber Nigeria, currently has 9,000 active driver-partners and no fewer than 267,000 monthly riders, an official has said”.).
I refer you back to this piece to understand how to build effective digital growth model in Nigeria that does not disappoint partners. Simply, you have just about 30 million people in Nigeria to sell to in that digital business!
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Even 30 million projection is still a luxury, so after all the deductions and oscillations, the REAL potential customers with purchasing power would be around 15 million. You don’t need to think too much about it, just fight to get the attention of those 15 million Nigerians first.
Our population of 200 million roughly come down to around 30 million households, don’t measure by headcount, except you are running a charity organisation. An average family size here has six or seven persons, in the US you maybe looking at four to five persons. In our case, most of these families may have only one person capable of buying something, meaning that the rest are dependent on that person. Some households don’t even have what you can call a ‘digital representative’, so you still have to discount them.
In the US, a family of five persons may even have four of their members capable of buying something in the digital space, so when we run numbers, we still need to pay attention to details.
Most models involving numbers fail here because people would sit in skyscrapers and glass houses modelling and running numbers for those in slums and villages that are totally disconnected from civilization, and they believe they are smart…
“Even 30 million projection is still a luxury, so after all the deductions and oscillations, the REAL potential customers with purchasing power would be around 15 million” – that is now scarier