‘Why Nigerians prefer making calls, texts with apps’

A 57-year-old peasant farmer from Kogi State, Joy Daudua who is now using a low-budget smartphone for the first time in her life, one of her daughters bought for her, has revealed that calling and texting apps like Dingtone and WhatsApp have been live servers for people like her.

Though she is struggling to learn how to use the phone, WhatsApp is one of the apps on it that appeals to her. Since she started using the app to make calls and text to her family and friends, she has been saving some money compared to when she uses her airtime.

Olisa Duru is a young businessman from Anambra State. In his iPhone and Android phones are Dingtone and WeChat calling apps. He has been using the apps for almost one year now to make local and international calls, which saves him a lot of money compared to when he uses his airtime for the same purpose.

Seyi Jimoh is a senior secondary school student from Ekiti State. His mother recently bought him a manageable second-hand smartphone for his 17th birthday. Since Jimoh has classmates who use phones and have calling apps on them, the first thing he did was to download Dingtone and Viber on his phone. He said since his parents hardly give him a weekly stipend to buy airtime, he uses the apps to connect with his friends.

Like Daudua, Duru, and Jimoh, there are many Nigerians who use these calling apps. Their experience and testimonies of these apps indicate that they mostly prefer making calls and texts with them than with their airtime.

According to Statista, in 2021, the number of mobile internet users in the country amounted to over 101.7 million. In the same year, 48.12 per cent of Nigerians accessed the internet via mobile devices, and this number is projected to grow by 69.7 per cent in 2026.

Also, according to a report by Appflyer, Nigeria recorded the highest number of app instillation in Africa from 2020 through the first quarter of 2021. Appflyer carried out this analysis on 6000 apps and two billion instillations. The analysis shows that Nigeria had 43 per cent of the total app installation in the continent, closely followed by South Africa, 37 per cent, and Kenya, 29 per cent.

It is evident that as low-budget phones continue to flood the Nigerian market and new calling apps enter cyberspace, many more people, especially young people, will exploit them to cut down the cost of the calls they make.

Some of these calling apps include, but are not limited to, Dingtone, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, Hangout, WeChat, Viber, and Chili Talk.

According to Punch newspaper, London to Lagos maybe 4292 miles in the distance, but with the help of free calling apps, this distance can disappear.

An article published by CallHippo shows that every year, approximately 6.2 billion international calls are made, totalling a staggering 490 billion minutes. The site added that this is why many people rely on international calling apps to save money while travelling.

There are many Nigerians who regularly travel to foreign countries and those that have relatives in foreign countries. It costs them a lot to call their friends and family using their airtime. However, for some of them who use calling apps, things have been made easier and cheaper.

According to a report by South Africa’s Business Insider analysing the calls South Africans make using WhatsApp and airtime, reveals that even in a worst-case scenario, one would not come close to paying more using calling apps than one would pay if they use their airtime.

“Calls using data services like WhatsApp are about 90 per cent cheaper than if you use traditional airtime,” Business Insider reports. “If you’re still using airtime to make call-to-call calls, now is definitely the time to stop.”

This analysis is most likely to be applicable to other countries, including Nigeria. Dingtone, WeChat, and Viber show almost the same cost-effectiveness when compared to WhatsApp.

According to information from the Dingtone website, users of Dingtone app can make local and international calls to anyone over WiFi or 3G/4G data network to over 200 countries in the world at an unbelievably low rate.

The information on the site further noted that calls/texts between Dingtone users are free and that users can save up to 90 per cent while making international calls. Depending on the Dingtone feature one is using, a 30-minute phone call costs about 3.5MB, 100 text messages cost 300KB, a shared picture costs 64KB, A shared two-minute video costs 1.6MB, and a shared map costs 2KB.

Tiger Liu, the Vice President of Product at Dingtone, said they are targeting the Nigerian market because Nigeria is a big attractive market. Nigeria has invested quite a lot in recent years in creating an environment that is attractive for businesses coming from the outside. In the context of growing international trade, and because of the demand for international numbers in the country is surging, Nigeria is a good choice for Dingtone to expand the business.

Liu stated that Dingtone provides millions of real US, UK, and other countries’ phone numbers, which could satisfy Nigerian people’s needs because Nigerian businessmen and overseas students have very close relationships with the world outside Nigeria. He added that the phone numbers support caller ID, call block, call forwarding, voicemail, and other features without any monthly plan or hidden charges.

“Get local phone numbers to enjoy local services when you’re travelling abroad,” Liu said. “Stop paying outrageous roaming charges just to communicate with family and friends.”

Like Joy Daudua, Olisa Duru, and Seyi Jimoh, millions of other Nigerians are using and downloading calling/texting apps on a daily basis to make contact and connection with people that matter to them at a very low cost.

“I recently downloaded Dingtone app for my mother,” Jimoh said. “Just like me now, she hardly uses her airtime to make calls.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

• Revealed! Details Of South-West APC Leaders Meeting With Presidential Aspirants
• Supreme Court Has Cleared Civil Servants To Participate In Politics, Falana Tells FG
• Battle For New Alaafin Begins As Ruling Houses Insist On Producing Next Oba
• Court Admits More Evidence Against Alleged Fake Army General, Bolarinwa
• I’m Every Man’s Choice Now, My DM Is Crazy —Eniola Badmus
• It Is Now Bye To Decency: Crazy Fashion Trends At Owambe Parties