Nigerians Are Giving Up On Android, Want Their Blackberry Back

A new report from the Nigerian Tribune shares some insight into how
Nigerians are giving up on Android and heading back to BlackBerry
after having initially adopted Android devices due big displays,
available apps and low hardware pricing, tossing aside the fact the
devices cost more due to their data consumption and carrier pricing on
data plans.

Speaking with Digital Savvy on the matter, a smartphone dealer, David
'Professor' Apple, said that many Android phone users were switching
back toBlackBerrydevices because of high data subscription costs on
Android. "This is the reason many Android users are going back
toBlackBerry. The cost of subscription is relatively high.Most
Blackberry subscriptions cost N1,000 on most networks and the data
that comes with it can conveniently last up to a month. But for
Android, the charges are far higher and the data for one month does
not last," he said.

Apple is not alone in his view. Quite a number of Android users have
been up in arms, saying that the data subscription for their
smartphones is insufficient for their activities online.Many complain
that the Android subscription at N1000 hardly lasts up to a week. Some
say they even use it up in one day!

The gap between the data available for Android subscription compared
to BlackBerry at the same cost is wide. Presently among all the
networks, N1,000 subscription valid for one month barely attracts up
to 400MB even with all the bonus data some networks offer.

For N1,000, Glo provides 350MB, while MTN has the lowest among
networks with its 260MB. Compare this to BlackBerry subscriptions
which average 1GB on most networks. Airtel offers up to 2GB, while Glo
offers 3GB for N1000 monthly. Again, MTN offers the least at 350MB for
N1,000. Yet it still is more than what it offers for Android at the
same cost.

For those of us with carrier plans that are equal across the board and
WiFi readily available, it doesn't mean a lot, but in places where the
plans are still differentiated by which device you're using it's a
pretty big issue. As the Tribune notes, many Nigerians are making use
of BBM accounts for adverts and publicity, so if they can get more
data for less then the choice of using a BlackBerry is a fairly simple
one to make.

As for the other benefits of BlackBerry 10, it seems Nigerians are
well ahead in recognizing those as well compared to North America and
they already know that BlackBerry 10 is NOT like BlackBerry OS of
earlier days and are returning their Android devices for BlackBerry 10
smartphones.

This time around, the BlackBerry 10 series which users have observed
not to 'hang' or have battery issues, appears to be their preferred
choice for most of them. According to one of the 'returnees', who
simply identified himself as Kunle, "I moved from BlackBerry to
Android; now I just got a Z10." No doubt some people will say 'So
what, it's Nigeria' but it's that kind of love BlackBerry has to have
on their side and when they find out the experience on BlackBerry 10
meets their needs exceptionally well and for now at least, costs them
less, it'll be hard to remove that. On top of that, Nigeria is one of
the most developed countries in Africa with an economy worth
approximately $510B and growing, it's one of the top ten most
populated countries in the world and with over 100 million cell phone
users, they have the ability to affect change. We don't even have to
mention the fact that BlackBerry 10 can run a lot of the Android apps
that attracted them in the first place.