Google announced today that Nigerian app users will be able to purchase apps from the Android Market.

The idea is to increase consumer access and developer support for paid applications in 99 new countries – including 26 African countries such as Ghana, South Africa and Kenya.

According to Google, this latest expansion of the Android Market makes it possible for consumers from these newly supported countries to have access to over 200,000 free and paid apps in Android Market, which they can access directly from their Android-powered device.

That means more applications – including games, social, and productivity apps – for consumers and more selling opportunities for developers in more countries.

But Nigerian developers can’t sell their apps. At least not yet. Which begs the question: Is Google really interested in building an ecosystem of Android developers in Nigeria?

Google’s Android Market was launched to help developers distribute mobile applications on a level playing field for users to find and download apps, but if Nigeria can’t benefit from these opportunities, does it mean that Google can’t see an Android market in Nigeria?

Thanks to @bosahchude for the tip.

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Onyedika Oha, formerly the Head of Grop.ly West Africa has left the company and joined a new competitor.

Grop.ly, a Nigerian Groupon clone which launched in May 2010 provides deals from local businesses to customers. The company is globally headquatered in Houston, USA with operations in West Africa and Lagos, Nigeria as its regional headquaters.

As CEO of Grop.ly, Oha handled overall strategy and day-to-day operations of all components of the business for a period of eight months.

The group-buying site allows consumers 40% – 90% discounts from spas to salons, manicures to movies.

This week, Oha confirmed to us at TechLoy that he has left Grop.ly and joined DealDey.com. When asked about his new role at DealDey, he said: “I’m officially the Head of Gyst.com, which is a sister company to DealDey.com”.

In case you don’t know, Gyst is Nigeria’s number 1 local search engine for businesses and movies. DealDey (launched in March 2011) is a group-buying service that offers deals from local businesses to customers.

Prior to this, Oha was Director, Sales Group at Mobinatrics, where he was in charge of finding and crafting new market opportunities across a global spectrum (horizontal/vertical markets). He also ran both Sales, Marketing and Business Development Sub-groups along a plethora or independent product/service-lines.

Opera Software has just announced the launch of its mobile appstore through a strategic partnership with Appia, the leading provider of open application marketplace technology.

According to the press release,

“This storefront is a featured Speed Dial link in the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers, which makes the storefront immediately accessible by more than 100 million people who use an Opera browser on their mobile phones.”

The new Opera Mobile appstore offers both paid and free apps designed for a variety of phones running on Java, Symbian, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Mobile OS.

“The launch of the Opera Mobile Store supports Opera’s core belief in an open, cross-platform mobile Internet experience by providing Opera users with an integrated storefront of mobile applications,” Mahi de Silva, executive vice president for Opera’s Consumer Mobile group, said in a statement. “Our partnership with Appia delivers to all Opera Mobile and Opera Mini users easy access to a wide variety of great content, on any device, all over the world.”

Opera Software also launched the Opera Publisher Portal which provides developers with an easy way to get their applications onto the Opera Mobile Store and in front of millions of Opera users every month.

My Thoughts

Opera’s move is a smart one and one that’ll drive more competition in the over-crowded, yet Apple-dominated appstores space.

While I think that this could be bad news for Nigerian would-be appstores, it could also create collaboration amongst some of them.

What do we need 5-10 appstores for in a relatively non-existent apps market and ecosystem, when we can collaborate our efforts, time and resources to manage one for local apps?

Yet, a Nigerian appstore would still need some differentiation strategy to succeed.

In a bid to enter the mobile content and applications space, the MTN Group has announced plans to launch an app store later this year that would offer digital music downloads and other value-added services.

TechCentral reports that, Christian De Faria, formerly the vice-president for MTN in West and Central Africa and now the group’s senior vice-president for commercial and innovation, is leading the initiative.

“It’s no longer about selling airtime,” De Faria said, “Now it’s about bundling airtime with products and services. We need to ensure we can offer a range of services, from app stores to music to value-added services like m-health.”

What this means is that MTN is shifting from distributing airtime to becoming a solution provider to its customers.

De Faria further said that MTN would be going into partnership with content providers to offer services such as cloud computing, solutions for small and medium enterprises and to provide rich content in terms of music, gaming, entertainment and news.

This shift in focus would mean that MTN will be in direct competition with Apple’s iTunes Store and Nokia’s Ovi Store, although there are indications that MTN could partner with these platforms.

While I’m not sure what payment system MTN would be adopting for their Appstore, it is likely that mobile payment services such as Mpesa would be used.

It’ll be interesting to see what an MTN-branded app store would look like and if it would change the game in the mobile content and applications space in Africa.

More interesting will be how Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat would respond to MTN’s mobile shift.

The app was developed by Cybergold Integrated Solutions, an ICT company based in Benin, founded by Efosa Edokpolo.

Bulk SMS in Nigeria has become a very popular trend as it makes it possible for individuals and organizations to reach a larger number of mobile subscribers at a time, at an affordable cost.

Now with the help of the GoldSMS application available on Blackberry, iPhone, Android and Nokia smartphones, you can send those bulk SMSes with ease.

The app provides an alternative way of solving basic SMS needs while on the go. With this app on your phone, you don’t need to get on the internet anytime you want to send a Bulk SMS.

Features?

The simple design and integration with your phonebook makes sending and replying to messages much easier.

You can also download text files containing multiple phone numbers to your handheld device and use the BULK command on the app to send the message.

Other likely features coming soon are display of contact pictures for a conversation and extra customization options.

What’s Unique?

The app allows you send SMS to friends and contacts in your phone book.

You can also import a text file containing destination numbers from your phone, save them for reuse later.

The app lets you schedule messages to be sent later at a specific time, whether you’re online or not.

With its cool search functionality, you can search for sent messages by date.

With the app, you can receive delivered reports in a specified e-mail address.

The app is available for download here.

Thoughts

This is quite an amazing application and a unique boost to the growing Bulk SMS market in Nigeria.

Although I’m not a huge fan of bulk smsing, particularly because they can be easily regarded as spam, I reckon that it helps small businesses and marketers reach a wider audience.

However, if only bulk SMSes can be geo-targeted to a particular location or demography, it’ll add more value.

Perhaps that’s a feature that GoldSMS and other future apps should be looking at in their next versions.

These days, it seems that there are more ‘Daily Deal’ websites popping up than there are deals.

Groupon, the mother of all deal sites has seen tremendous success in the US, and is currently embarking on an aggressive global expansion.

Yesterday, Groupon announced the acquisition of three local daily deal sites, SoSasta in India, Grouper in Isreal and Twangoo in South Africa.

Thanks to Groupon’s recent $950 million funding. But no thanks to Google’s $6 billion acquisition bid of Groupon that was rejected.

Since Groupon has a lot of money to throw around; they offered $286 million to acquire a domain name (groupon.com.au) registered with their trademark by another company called Scoopon, we won’t be surprised to see domain-squatters grab groupon.com.ng

While all of these is happening, Groupon’s “collective buying” method has caught the attention of savvy business people in Nigeria.

Grop.ly, a Nigerian Groupon clone which launched in May 2010 has already provided over 250 deals from local businesses to customers.

Grop.ly is globally headquatered in Houston, USA with operations in West Africa and Lagos, Nigeria as its regional headquaters.

The site allows consumers 40% – 90% discounts from spas to salons, manicures to movies.

Grop.ly uses Cash Envoy, an online payments service and claims over N200,000 has been saved as a result of discounts found on its site.

Thoughts

Now that Groupon is seemingly domineering and determined to kill a good deal of its clones in various countries, it leaves one wondering if they’ll be interested in buying Grop.ly, their Nigerian clone.

While I’m not sure if Nigeria is a big enough market for group-buying services like this, I think it will come down to attracting a lot of people to buy the deals that they like with their friends.

Interestingly, Nigerians (especially Yorubas) love traditional group-buying. A good example is the ‘Aso-Ebi’ syndrome (pronounced ah-show-eh-bee), which literally means “clothes of friends” – a group-buying concept of wearing the same kind of clothing by friends and family to occasions such as weddings.

But only time will tell if the online group-buying method will work, especially as more and more businesses are willing to give discounts.

That could bring that critical mass of consumers needed to make the group-buying concept in Nigeria successful.

Only then would Groupon consider buying a local group-buying deals site in Nigeria.

Kilonshele.com is a new e-commerce site that provides ticket sales, marketing and distribution services as well as connects the world to live entertainment events in Nigeria by providing up-to-date information on live events and giving fans opportunity to buy tickets conveniently.

The word “Kilonshele” (pronounced – kee-lone-sheh-leh) is a Yoruba word meaning “what’s happening?” or “what’s going on”?

While writing this post, the site was not accessible, so I guessed the founders deliberately put it off until the official launch today (6pm) at the Silverbird Galleria. So I couldn’t check out their features, technicalities et al. But my colleague over at Web Trends Nigeria did a review of the service.

However, I found that Kilonshele’s logo has an icon (on/off button) that is ubiquitous: too common, too popular. It can be seen everywhere: on phones, laptops, etc Again, the icon on the logo should have been a green colour, instead of red, since red signifies switching off, while green denotes switched on. Plus, the green colour represents anything Nigerian.

Beyond this, Kilonshele.com seems like a start-up to watch!

Update: When you register as a member, the red button switches to green. That’s when you’re switched on!

At the end of a dinner and networking event organized by VTNetwork Nigeria Ltd at the Civic Centre in Lagos last Saturday, I was convinced that an e-commerce revolution was underway in Nigeria.

The event gathered industry experts and professionals from the banking, telecoms and technology sector to celebrate the success of the VTN mobile payment platform in partnership with Bank PHB.

What is VTN?

VTN – Virtual Terminal Network is a revolutionary hybrid virtual/mobile payment network designed solely for developing economies that allows merchants and retailers to process transactions safely and securely from the Internet and mobile phones.

Simply put, VTN offers the missing link for many online financial solutions in Nigeria, thereby making e-commerce a reality in Nigeria. There are currently 2698 merchants on VTN Network.

Could it be like Paypal?

VTN takes advantage of Nigeria’s huge increase in mobile phone and Internet usage to provide a service that allows business people in Onitsha, for instance, to sell goods and services to people in Bauchi and get paid with VTN, even if the buyers don’t have VTN accounts.

With your VTN merchant account, your sales or services are no longer limited to buyers in your street or town. As a VTN personal account holder, you can load and transfer money to your customers or relations across Nigeria via the Internet or your GSM phone. Also, you can receive money from people anywhere across Nigeria.

My thoughts

VTN behaves like M-PESA in Kenya and Paypal in the U.S. In fact, VTN could become to Nigeria what these two platforms are to their respective countries, making it easier and safer to transact businesses.

Although, I think people will be skeptical (at first) to use the service, as was the case with Paypal when it was introduced in the U.S., it could grow to become the largest payment solution for Africa.