The Strange Nature of the Nigerian App Market 110
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."
Elitism (Score:4, Interesting)
You're talking about a country with a per capita income of only $2,600. Clearly only the top 1% buy these phones and thus the expensive apps.
Re:Elitism (Score:4, Interesting)
$2,600 of reported income.
Faith of Nigeria (Score:3, Interesting)
40% of population are Christian and 50% muslin. No surprises as to the fervor of their faith.
Re:No surprise there (Score:5, Interesting)
And with a GDP per capita of approximately USD 2 600 (a twentieth of the US) very few of those can afford to pay for apps. The fact that the “CFA Exam Audio Series: Level II 2013 priced at $100 placed #3 gives a hint as to how many Nigerians are buying apps.
Re:Message bible? (Score:4, Interesting)
That is not correct, though that's a common misconception. The Council of Nicaea did not address the question of which books would be included in the Biblical canon. Rather, it concerned the nature of the relationship between God the Father and his son Jesus--it was a dispute between the followers of Athanasius who finally won out, who asserted that they were different persons, and the followers of Arius, who believed that God and the Son were separate entities. It was, of course, a political struggle, and that particular council was not the final word on the matter. There were messy struggles between the two factions (and several others that cropped up over the years) until the Emperor Theodosius I settled the question essentially by fiat near the end of the 4th century. (It was officially settled by council--but strangely enough, the results of the later councils always seemed to match the theological opinion of the reigning Augustus.)
The books that were taken to be part of the canon were largely settled somewhat earlier by consensus between the "orthodox" Christians--the ones that finally won out. Groups of Christians that disagreed were disenfranchised and exiled before the Council of Nicaea, as a result of the legal battles that ensued after the Edict of Milan legalized Christianity. At that time, the courts had to settle which groups were the actual Christians, and thus officially tolerated, and which were the churches of the false Christians that did not fall under the Edict's orders to restore seized property.
There were no Ecumenical Councils that took a position on the canon until the Council of Trent asserted the canonicity of the so-called "deuterocanonical" books--books in the Old Testament which the new Protestants rejected. The Protestants, of course, continued to reject those books, and so most Protestant Bibles fail to include books like Tobit and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
Re:Elitism (Score:4, Interesting)
The income distribution in Nigeria is radically different from Europe or America, and a great many Nigerians are outside the monetary economy, and quite a few are reasonably well off, In any case, no one in Nigeria believes statistical data, especially if it originates with the private sector or the government, or anyone else.