.NG registrations soars to 215,000

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... As NiRA pushes for more.

The .NG country code top-level domain (ccTLD), has soared to 215,000 in registration amidst call for increased adoption, reports ITREALMS.

Managers of the .NG, the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) gave this insight, showing that its popularity in usage for websites and email addresses have continued to grow.

NCC: Telecoms sector soars in GDP controbution - ITREALMS

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Nigerian Telecommunications industry has continueb to soar in contributions to the nations Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in efforts at growing the socio-economic growth of the country, reports ITREALMS.

The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC/CEO) Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta made this known at the second edition of Nigerian Telecommunications Indigenous Content Expo (NTICE) held at the Landmark Center, Victoria Island, Lagos with the theme: “Harnessing Indigenous Content for Economic Growth; Networking to boost Investments."

Truecaller soars to 100m daily active users

ITREALMS:

The Truecaller app has reached over 100 million active users in less than a year following is leapfrogging from 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) per month to 100 million daily active users (DAUs), and is growing faster than ever, reports ITRealms.

With over 20 per cent of its user-base in Africa, Truecaller app service identifies more than half a billion calls a month in the region, and 50 per cent of SMS received were spam.

ITRealms gathered that in Nigeria the application blocks and filters more than 13 million calls and 25 million spam SMSes per month.

From people predominantly using Nokia and BlackBerry phones, to a wide array of Androids and Apple’s, technology is constantly evolving around us. The cost of both mobile phones and data continues to plunge, people all around are now armed with connected devices.

In emerging markets, there is an increased importance placed on smartphones in peoples’ daily lives. It’s their primary gateway to the internet, their connection with family and friends, people abroad, and increasingly their main banking and finance tool.

Alan Mamedi, CEO & co-founder of Truecaller, said: “Close to a decade ago, we set out to solve what we thought was a simple problem – how do we figure out who these unknown numbers belong to that keeps calling us? Little did we know how big of a problem that actually was in all corners of the world.”

“It was so big, in fact, that Truecaller is pleased and excited to announce that we now have more than 100 million daily active users using our app for their daily communication. There are only a handful of mobile-only services that impact as many users each and every day and we are humbled to be able to join this exclusive group,” says Mamedi.

The proliferation of new and advanced technologies that are ever evolving, Truecaller has also come a long way since the day the company was founded. From simple beginnings as a Caller ID and spam blocking app, to a full fledge communications platform with calling, SMS’, Flash Messages and payment services.

“We could never have predicted that Truecaller would become an indispensable resource for women’s safety in many countries; or that it would be used for e-commerce and courier services around the globe to facilitate the difficult last mile of delivery; or allow more people to experience a data-only product in offline mode,” says Mamedi. “Truecaller is more than just an app on your phone, it has aided in bridging the digital divide between the urban and growing semi urban/rural markets in India; and has even enabled more African businesses to accept online payment.”

“We’re continuously working to make communications safer and efficient and the fact that we have so many users validates our mission. We’re excited to see what the next decade and 100 million users bring us. So to all millions of users who helped us get here we would like to say thank you,” Mamedi said.

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Fintech startup, Zoto, soars in customer adoption

ITREALMS:

Fintech startup, Zoto, has witnessed a soaring customer adoption through transacting user base and order volume in the last one year, reports ITRealms.

The transacting user base and order volume, ITRealms gathered, grew by 56 per cent and 200 per cent respectively, in the last financial year.

Zoto, which is a product of Hedonmark Management Services Limited and Nigeria’s fastest growing payment solution, promises to replicate an even higher growth curve in the financial year 2018 -19.

The fintech startup, ITRealms reports, processed 5 million orders in the last year which is expected to grow 300 per cent to 15 million orders in the financial year 2018-19 due to growing volume of electronic payments by Nigeria’s young and digitally savvy mobile users. Zoto has scaled quickly with over one million downloads and an app rating of 4.6. 

Nigeria has one of the fastest growing population in the world most of whom are mobile and digitally savvy due to prices of Android phones dropping by as much as 45% and data prices reducing by as much as 80%. The accessibility to mobile phones and data has led to an explosion in electronic payments, with 117 billion USD worth electronic transactions processed in Jan – Dec 2016. 

Reacting to this development, Oshone Ikazoboh, Co-Founder & COO of Zoto expressed delight at the rapid progress made by Zoto with a short time.

“These milestones will motivate us to work even harder and achieve the goal of becoming West Africa’s preferred digital payments solution. In near future we plan to expand vertically and horizontally by adding more categories and increasing the number of merchants in each category, this will help us provide better payment experience to our users and make us an indispensable channel for payments,” he said.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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CBN says business soars in April 2017, as agriculture tops subsector growth

Exclusive@ITRealms:

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that businesses activities soared in the month of April 2017, just as agriculture topped the subsector growth, ITRealms exclusively reports.

The apex bank in its monthly survey by the management division of Statistics department, also known as the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) revealed to ITRealms that business activity index rose to 53.3 points in April from its level of 49.8 points in March this year.

ITRealms gathered that under business activities, there were 12 sub-sectors which recorded growth in the following order: agriculture; utilities; transportation & warehousing; educational services; finance & insurance; water supply, sewage & waste management; public administration; electricity, gas, steam & air conditioning supply; real estate.

Also, ITRealms reports that the growth continued with rental & leasing; information & communication; health care & social assistance and repair, maintenance/washing of motor vehicles. The professional, scientific, & technical services subsector remained unchanged, while the remaining five sub-sectors recorded growth in the order: management of companies; arts, entertainment & recreation; construction; wholesale trade and accommodation & food services.

Equally, ITRealms reports that the production level index for manufacturing sector expanded for the second consecutive month in April 2017.

“The index at 58.5 points indicated an increase in production at a faster rate when compared to the 50.8 points in the previous month,” the survey revealed.

Whereas the 13 manufacturing sub-sectors recorded increase in production level led by chemical & pharmaceutical products.

ITRealms further recalls that the Statistics Department of CBN conducts a monthly survey of purchasing and supply executives of manufacturing and non-manufacturing organizations in 13 locations in Nigeria: two states in each of the six geo-political zones, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The survey results, ITRealms reports were used to compute the monthly Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) and were conducted on April 18th to 24th, 2017 with a total of 1,743 responses received from a sample of 1,950 respondents, representing a response rate of 89.4 per cent.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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SunTrust Bank soars in first year

ITRealms:

The SunTrust Bank Nigeria Limited has released its financial performance for the year ended December 31, 2016, showing a clear message of determination to succeed and deliver value to all stakeholders, reports ITRealms.

SunTrust Bank, ITRealms gathered, began commercial banking activities last year with the vision to “offer high quality retail and commercial banking services in a modern and innovative manner” according to the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mr. Muhammed Jubrin.

“We will use technology and a new way of thinking to provide banking services to many people and businesses in Nigeria for whom access to a bank account has previously been impossible. We will offer telephone, mobile and Internet banking underpinned by the traditional banking ethics of probity and integrity,” he declared.

And going by the results of the bank for 2016, the future is very bright for all stakeholders. The bank grew its bottom-line by 160.2 per cent as profit before tax (PBT) rose from N131.9 million to N343.34 million in 2016.

In all, the bank he said recorded net interest income of N935.892 million in 2016, up from N220 million in 2015, while net fee and commission income improved from N65.389 million to N92.378 million in 2016.

“SunTrust Bank ended the year with a profit after tax (PAT) growth to 74.57 per cent from N121.844 million in 2015 to N212.707 million in 2016,” he said.

Ayo Midele/GEE

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