I visited WhatsApp, a close friend, last weekend and I saw him preparing for a large party but the interesting bit’s that he’s gonna serve MTN’s dinner to his other many friends.
Ok, that’s some unwitty joke but hey, I hope you caught the drift.
Some events over the last few months have shown me that the next 2 years may be quite scary for MTN and its colleagues. When you are making $2.6B profit a year, you may feel like part of the Greek gods just don’t forget Nokia and Blackberry.
International Calls Made Easy with WhatsApp
I get to do some travels once in a while. Roaming your phone can be a dog of an activity as it could be so expensive. Before you call me cheap, just imagine what N80 per SMS in Ethiopia means to someone who has never been a minister of petroleum. Rebtel has been a good companion over the years but sometimes the call quality can be very bad. At first I thought maybe because it’s VOIP but then calls to other countries were clear and never cut off. Apparently it seems our Telcos route their roaming calls through some Pentium PCs. You can’t be too sure of these things. My visit to some roaming-charge-friendly countries finally convinced me that our Telcos are rats.
Then WhatsApp call came along.
I didn’t know how good it was until when someone called me on it and I forgot that it was a WhatsApp call. It was clear and best of all free! Nowadays it has become my default calling mode whenever I hop on a metal bird out of the madness of Lasgidi
Local Calls Made Easy with WhatsApp
One of my annoying colleagues has an annoying habit of calling me annoyingly on WhatsApp. Until, wait, the calls are clear! I mean as bad as the Nigeria data network is, the calls are as clear as normal calls and best part, absolutely free!
The Hungry Future
- What if the WhatsApp call catches on like Blackberry in Nigeria and everyone defaults to it?
- What if WhatsApp creates a local gateway that allows termination of normal voice calls?
- What if MTN’s voice income bottoms out?
Some Annoying Things about WhatsApp
- A normal call interrupts it
- It doesn’t have voicemail
- I can’t see tatafo like on Blackberry. I love gbeborun, after all someone bought a house in Banana Island just from telling on others.
Back to your desks, brethren!
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More than a million Nigerians are “UnWhatsapped”.
Nice gbebenro but trust me, that telco knows their onions (their analysts must be supernosy & supersmart).
Y do Nigerians complain about their services, hidden charges, unsolicited sms, threaten porting…yet still glued to the network like good sex?
Amongst every Nigerian that have dual lines, the other is always MTN.
I understand your projections but you didn’t think it through well. Those guys are veerrryyy good!