The mobile telephony is changing the lifestyle of people and business communications worldwide with Billions of SMS sent worldwide annually and over 50 million carrier grade SMS sent in Nigeria daily, SMS is positioned to be the most used communications medium of all time.

Despite the widespread illiteracy in Nigeria and many other countries in Africa, SMS is still widely used even in tribal languages which do not need special alphabets. Early adopters like in the Philippines, the SMS Capital of the world where about 500 million sms was sent on New year day 2008,is an example of country where emerging economics should learn from in areas of SMS services deployment.

SMS does not require any special application download like other mobile medium like mms, wap and Gprs and this is one unique advantage it has and hence is spread and popularity.

While many European and Asian countries use sms extensively to further their lifestyle and businesses, Nigerians are not exploring much of this cheap technology apart from “text-2-win” promos.

SMS can be very useful in many spheres of the economy. In the Public sphere for example in Philippines, low income taxes are already being administered via sms and it is a huge success. It is very fast , efficient and easy to administer. In many Asian countries, emergency numbers alerts systems are deployed for emergency notifications during natural disasters like earthquake , Tsunami and Hurricanes while Nigerians are free from these natural catastrophes, theirs are man made disasters like Armed banditry, militancy, corruption, HIV, poor governance and police harassment. Simple sms feed back systems can help in all these areas. The Niger Delta villager can be empowered to send a simple sms to report an oil spillage before it gets out of hand, citizens can send sms to a short code to report criminal activities, sms can be used as a whistle blower for the corrupt officials, police feed back systems with live sms updates will go a long way in tackling criminal elements in our society.Traffic offenders are now tracked via SMS is some countries and all the enforcement officer needs to do is send sms with plate numbers to do a back ground check on any motorist, anytime and anywhere!!! It is cheap and efficient.

Already some European nations are already toying with the idea of having sms elections in future elections .All the voter is required to do is to check for their eligibility by texting their social security numbers to a short code and if eligible, they get a response and they cast their vote via sms.

In Business Sphere, SMS is doing well in Nigeria as Banking services notification system which helps to check mate fraudulent activities but it is yet to be deployed for more robust services like check verification systems and third party payment systems. Sms feedback systems is also changing customer facing technology in the FMCG sector. SMS feedback systems allows product owners and service providers to quickly get customers complaints via sms. This was not possible before as customers are either required to call an unmanned call centre number or send it through email.

Now SMS Brochure requesting is possible in Most part of Europe and people just make request through sms to get product brochure and even account opening forms.

SMS is not about “text-2-win” promotions. It is more than that. It is a powerful tool that can be used in all areas only if private entrepreneurs will see the opportunities.


Emmanuel Okoegwale
Emmanuel@mobileworldmag.com