Nigeria is Set for Rapid Internet Adoption among SMEs Explains DomainKing Nigeria

DomainKings
DomainKings Nigeria
2 June 2018
Content from a Premium Partner
DomainKing (Lagos)

Nigeria is buzzing with largest internet-using population in Africa based on stats by Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). There are now more than 98.3 million internet users in Nigeria & these internet users not only like to surf the web but also getting inclined towards buying online.

Nigerian Ecommerce industry currently valued at $13 billion at approx over 100% CAGR in the last 4 years. This shows that there is a great potential for SMEs to sell their products online.

Karan Singh of DomainKing.NG explains how more Nigerian SMEs are looking to leverage the internet for their growth.

108% growth in Domain penetration in last 3 years:

As per industry reports, the domain penetration percentage in Nigeria have grown by 108% in the last 3 years. There were almost 120,000 new domain registrations in Nigeria in 2014 and this number grew to almost 250,000 new domain registrations in 2017. This growth is expected to double in just next 2 years because the major changes that have been observed in last year alone.

With these stats, it is clear that an increasing number of SMEs are showing interest in getting online provided the necessary information and affordable online services for creating their online presence is made available to them.

With the rapid boom of entrepreneurship and development in the internet infrastructure, thereby making internet more affordable, Nigeria is poised for rapid adoption of internet in coming years explains, DomainKing CEO, Karan Singh.

More growth in Tier II and Tier III cities:

Nigeria is largely a Do-It-For-Me (DIFM) market rather than a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) market. Most small businesses prefer to hire a web developer to create their website & online shops. Web professionals provide businesses with much needed expertise and knowledge of digital technologies such as designing of websites, Search Engine Marketing and Social media marketing. Web Designers & Resellers play a big role in growth of SMEs by helping small businesses in creating their website and business portals.

Outlining the company's growth in the last 3 years, Karan Singh explains, 42% of clients are web designer/developers & Resellers but generate bulk of our revenue. Designers prefer to choose us over our competitors because we provide 1-stop solution for everything from affordable domain names to feature rich web hosting in Nigeria for as low as N300/month. Our Resellers usually manage multiple services for their clients in a single account, so we provide our Resellers with clean panel, API for easy management of multiple clients & services in a single account.

By the end of 2016, close to 84% of our clients were from 3 major states in Nigeria i.e. Lagos, Abuja & Rivers. But since last year, we have seen a strong demand for online solutions, outside of these top states. We are now also getting almost 34% new orders from tier-II and tier-III cities throughout the country. Now there is an increased demand of online services among SMEs throughout the country. More Resellers are joining our platform from all over the country to serve SMEs in their cities.

DomainKing is well positioned to be the preferred choice among SMEs:

Nigeria is a very price sensitive market. According to the feedback from our Resellers, most SMEs don't want to spend more than ₦25,000 to establish their first online presence. So we find that making our services more affordable for SMEs & our Resellers will be the key to unlocking this growth potential, added Karan.

To support more SMEs to build their online presence we had recently launched online marketing campaign that promote the use of local domains. With our campaigns SMEs were encouraged to secure their .NG domain for just ₦499/year.

We believe that faster adoption of internet by Nigerian SMEs is closely related to the growth of .NG domains. We have found that more online businesses are establishing their websites on local Nigerian domains. So, we had launched a campaign earlier this year to promote the usage of .NG domains, and we saw 82% growth in new .NG domain Registrations as compared to previous months. Encouraged by this response received by this offer, we have reduced the pricing of .NG domains to ₦699/year for the next few months.

We have experienced over 180% year-on-year growth in the number of net new customers since the last year. In the last 2 years, more SMEs and Resellers are shifting locally to us mostly from International providers. We are perfectly positioned in Nigeria to get more small businesses online.

We aim to take more than 75,000 SMEs online by the end of 2020 through our world class services & extremely affordable prices for SMEs. We estimate that we will have close to 40% Hosting market share in the country within the next 2 years, added Mr. Karan.

With internet having become integral part of everyone's daily life, it is crucial for SMEs to create their online presence to reach global audience.

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