Smile Communications set to crash data prices

Nigeria’s leading internet service provider, Smile Communications will soon announce a major slash in data prices in an unprecedented effort to engender brand loyalty and extend it leadership in the data market.

This was recently made known by the newly appointed Managing Director of the company, Mr. Godfrey Uhrobo, during a media event in Lagos, after the company launched its new product called SmallVoice.

” In the coming days i can assure you that we’ll make a major announcement about a reduction in prices,” the MD said. Mr. Uhrobo’s response came after a customer at the event lamented the high prices of Smile product, and how he had to switch loyalty in favour of competiting brands, even though Smile offered better services.

The decision to cut prices is indeed coming in response to the yearnings of consumers in Nigeria for a more affordable data and the increasing intensity of competition in the data segment, where brands like Spectranet, Swift Network, IPNx, and others are aggressively working to displace Smile as market leader.

But the competition in the data segment is not just coming from Spectranet, but even the telco brands are a major player also. and in recent they have become an even bigger threat follwowing series of mind-blowing prices slashes which has made data even more affordable.

Courtesy of the price war by the telco brands, data are now twice or even thrice as affordable as they were by the beginning of the year. And according to analysts, consumer stand to benefit more.

In the last couple of years, there have been an increasing demand for data in Nigeria. The rise in demand has been primarily inspired by the high mobile phone penetration in the country and a burgeoning youth population with a big appetite for data which they exhaust surfing the internet and connecting with firnds on different social media platforms.