SWAP NAIJA: THIS MOBILE APP MAY BRING THE BIGGEST DISRUPTION TO TELECOMS

Olufemi Babalogbon

Last December at the TEDx Conference in Ibadan – popularly known as TEDxBodija – a mobile app that helps to share airtime across different telecom networks in Nigeria, Swap Naija was unveiled by Opeoluwa Aiyegbusi and Lawrence-Oye Akinwale. Both young guys took advantage of the platform to introduce their app to Nigerians and the experience was exciting because such “swap” of airtime was previously impossible. These tech-preneurs have turned a constraint – the ability to send airtime from telecom line A to telecom line B – into convenience and fun. It is not just a digital innovation; it is one that brings disruptive technology into the telecom industry.

The notion of disruptive technologies, pioneered by Christensen (1997), has had a strong effect on the way technology competition is viewed. We now understand that technologies with inferior performance can displace established quality-performing ones.  The consumers will always demand a new simpler technology and the disruptive innovator will lead the market. Therefore, telecoms must not ignore the lower performing, less appealing and low-end disruptive technologies that the fast growing emerging markets demand nowadays, because this could lead to failure in the future. We must not forget that similar disruptive technologies kicked Sharp, Nokia and Blackberry out of their respective markets.  The telecom industry in Nigeria may not appreciate Swap Naija until they think about the difference between digital innovation and disruptive technology.

In the US, whoever has used both the traditional GPS and Waze - a GPS-app that provides driving directions and real-time traffic situations – can easily spot the difference between a digital innovation and a disruptive technology. While the traditional GPS will provide just the driving directions, Waze will provide the driver with real-time information such as traffic jams, accidents, road closures, and the best routes per time. All these features of Waze escaped the intelligence of the traditional GPS. It is very simple – the disruptive technology kicks out the previous innovation.
Swap Naija has come to render the telecom portability window less intelligent. By 2015 Open Signal, the crowd-sourced cell phone signal startup, has flagged Nigeria as the country with the highest penetration of dual SIM devices in the world at 66% penetration. This means for every five mobile phones in Nigeria, three will most likely turn out to be Dual-SIMed. With the use of Swap Naija mobile app, the end user will be happy to rather swap than port: swapping airtime from the SIM of telecom A, to the SIM of telecom B, to get cheaper tariff or incentives. So you wouldn’t need to port, you just swap! When you imagine what more disruptions could be churned out by Opeoluwa and Lawrence-Oye, you will agree that the telecoms should be talking to these guys by now.




Olufemi Babalogbon is the Chief Marketing Technologist of Brand Soulhouette Limited and he curates TEDxBodija. He can be reached via @Babalowise.

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