The Strange Nature of the Nigerian App Market

zacharye writes "With 100 million mobile subscribers, Nigeria stands among leading mobile markets in the world. Its mobile content sector is quite fascinating — this is a market where $100 apps can debut at the No.3 position on Apple's list of top iOS apps. Bible and Quran apps are a major feature of the Nigerian mobile content market. The evergreen 'Message Bible' was launched globally in December 2009 at almost the same time as 'Angry Birds.' While the raging avians achieved greater global success, 'Message Bible' was a smash in Nigeria, recently returning again to No.15 among the top grossing iPhone apps. In the United States, the app didn't even crack the top 600 at its peak."

No surprise there

[Wizard052]

As Africa's most populous country, it's got millions of mobile subscribers. This is one prime market that's often overlooked as the West focuses on the BRIC markets...

Re:No surprise there

[William Robinson]

Just checked and surprised to see India has [indiatimes.com] 929 million mobile subscribers. That is huge market.

Re:Africa

[Adam Jorgensen]

Nope, we're basically still being raided for raw resources by the rest of the world.

Re:419 Scam?

[icebraining]

I (and Carlin) said Religion, not the Bible. If you think that churches are teaching the Bible, you're sorely mistaken.

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious [npr.org]

Re:419 Scam?

[alexgieg]

And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

Actually, the Christian Hell is the Greek Hades, in which the Greek religion said everyone went no matter what. You had some slight better places within Hades for good people, such as the Elysium Fields, but it was commonly accepted that going to anywhere in Hades wasn't good, and that staying alive was way better, thank you very much. (Olympus, by the way, was the realm of the gods and demigods, not of dead humans.) So, early Christian apologetics at the time went more or less like this:

Christian: "Hey, bro! Do you have a minute?"
Greek: "Yeah, sure. What is it?"
Christian: "I'd like to talk to you about a hot new Eastern religion I follow. But before, please tell me: where do you go after you're die?"
Greek: "Well, to Hades. Everyone knows that."
Christian: "And what if I told you you can actually go to Olympus instead?"
Greek: "What? How come!? That's unpossible!!!11!1!!!"
Christian: "Ah, but it's very possible! Let me tell you about this god of mine..."

PS.: By the way, the Christians don't think certain specific things lead to Hell/Hades. Keeping in line with the Greek religion, it's all of them. Do anything or nothing at all, and you go to Hades anyway. It's merely the standard human afterlife, no strings attached. Heaven/Olympus is an optional alternative.