One trio spotted Nigeria’s potential from quite literally continents away. Meet Carry1st, the gaming trio headed by a Sierra Leonean, an American, and a Zimbabwean. Cordel Robbin-Coker, Lucy Parry, and Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu co-founded the gaming development startup in 2018 and invested $4 million in African mobile gaming. Many Nigerians will already know the company through Carry1st Trivia, which was the number one game in Nigeria for most of last year.
What makes Nigeria’s mobile gaming industry so unique?
Africa has a combination of youthful demographics, widening internet connectivity, and access to mobile technology. In short, millions of young adult Nigerians armed with smartphones – a goldmine for tech companies. Games like Carry1st Trivia proved exceptionally popular in the country.
Football continues to reign supreme as the national sport with legendary Nigerian players continuing to be celebrated, as we reported at https://www.gistmania.com/. It is no surprise that on the back of this, the football gaming industry is also booming. Nigeria’s football frenzy is fueled by games such as FIFA which allow you to control or play as your favourite soccer hero. Mobile iGaming has also seen huge growth in Nigeria in recent years, with slot providers now making play more convenient. Joining the football frenzy phenomenon, online casino comparison sites such as https://www.vegasslotsonline.com/ offer games like Football Frenzy and Football Mania that allow the user to become a virtual spectator or player in the sport. The popularity of these football-themed games, both FIFA and slots, gives a clear picture of how enthusiastic Nigerians are about the beautiful game. This also demonstrates the huge potential of the gaming industry in Nigeria as a whole.
The future of African mobile gaming
Carry1st may have been the first startup to seriously invest in Nigeria’s mobile gaming scene, but they will certainly not be the last. African tech is a bright and promising industry attracting investors from all around the world. The boom in digital innovation and rising economies across the continent’s 54 countries are a mobile gaming explosion waiting to happen.
The $4 million venture capital raised by the startup will be deployed in game publishing in Nigeria and across Africa as a whole. Carry1st also plans to expand its distribution channels through partnerships and ambassador programs – promising news for local agents. In an interview with TechCrunch, cofounder Robbin-Coker announced, “We want to dedicate at least a million dollars to actually going out and acquiring users and scaling our user base.” He went on to declare that Carry1st aimed to become the “number one regional publisher of [gaming] content in the region.”
The customer base is flourishing
A 2020 Mobile Economy in Sub-Saharan Africa report by the GSMA estimated that 475 million people in the region will have mobile connectivity by 2025. Of these mobile internet users, 27% will be on 4G and 3% on 5G.
The disruptive industry of gaming is present worldwide, where over 4 in 5 internet users between the ages of 16 and 65 play video games every month. In other words, there are approximately 3.5 billion gamers around the globe, with most of these (65%) playing games on their smartphones. Games are a huge source of global revenue –according to Nielson’s SuperData Research, mobile gaming worldwide generated a whopping $64.4 billion in 2019 alone.
The role of Nigeria in the African landscape
As Africa’s most populous country with the youngest population, Nigeria has no small role to play. Within the country, revenues from mobile gaming are set to increase by 16% through 2022.
Nigeria also has more tech hubs than any other African country. The country is marked by a thriving “techpreneur” scene of startups that promote growth within Nigeria and beyond. The online market Jumia has been the virtual birthplace of several notable startups, including PiggyVest, a fintech company that encourages young Nigerians to take control of their finances. Cofounder Odunayo Eweniyi explained the idea behind the platform: “Our platform exists because 80% of Nigerians – and probably Africans – need to save at least 40% of their monthly income to survive.
Startups like these and Carry1st believe in the potential of Nigeria. When it comes to mobile gaming, the future lies in Africa.
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