The world is changing faster than we ever imagined some decades ago. The increased penetration of technology across the globe especially through mobile phone has changed the way we live and work. Like never before the adoption of mobile phones has enhanced in many ways, economic and social activity on the continent of Africa and Nigeria in particular. A recent study shows that 90 percent of access to the internet in Nigeria is done via mobile devices.
In view of this development, and motivated by the need to help Nigerians stay in touch with new opportunities through the internet, Nigeria’s leading ICT Company, MTN Nigeria, is offering Nigerians a full month of free downloads for all Nigerian apps under the auspices of a movement, tagged as APPtitude. Its intention is to help Nigerians embrace mobile applications as a shortcut to navigating the internet in an easy, faster and more efficient manner.
The APPtitude campaign, which runs from May 1 – 30, 2015, offers Nigerians the chance to download their favourite apps for free by texting APP to 131. As part of the benefits of the movement, an APPtitude portal has been created on the MTN website, which curates a host of local apps in the market under different categories that include sports, entertainment, lifestyle, health/fitness, business as well as religion. The apps can be downloaded by everyone FREE of charge for 30 days.
Speaking at the media ceremony to usher in the APPtitude Campaign, Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria, Bayo Adekanmbi said many Nigeria-centric websites are complex with hard-to-remember URLs. He added that apps provide a better, and an alternative way of engaging users, irrespective of social class as their functionality is defined by the user’s ability to interact with icons and images.
“This movement is a continuation of the BetterMe journey and its core aim is to democratize access to the internet. The APPtitude movement is borne out of the need to educate our customers on the value which can be derived from making use of mobile application in their everyday business. We are also driven by the vision to build an ecosystem that allows people to pursue their different passions and interests by leveraging on the simplicity which mobile apps provide,” Adekanmbi said.
In addition, MTN promises to support app developers, associations and SMEs in converting their websites to mobile applications while bearing the cost of maintaining and hosting the apps. As such local app developers are encouraged to submit their apps on the APPtitude portal even as MTN is committed to promoting these apps by providing them with visibility and reach to its 61 million subscribers. App developers who want to upload their apps on the portal should visit, http://cp.nexva.com/r/mtn and follow the steps.
MTN’s commitment to providing solutions through the development of mobile apps is well chronicled. In 2013, the leading telco launched the NextApps store to boost the aggregation of local content and later organized an app developer challenge to support app development in the country. MTN also launched the Music+ app in 2014 to provide content owners with a robust platform for engagement and concretized its engagement with the launch of the BetterMe app this year in a bid to usher in Telco 2.0, a full scale focus on data and digital services.
