Nigerians in the market for a place to live are increasingly using their smartphones to find their next home, with a growing number of online real estate tech firms rising to meet the demand.
A combination of population growth, faster broadband speeds and cheaper smartphones have been a catalyst for the rise of proptech, as tech startups within the property sector are known, according to Reuters.
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Nigeria has the highest number of internet users in Africa, with 98.3 million active internet users in 2018, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission.
Most of these users access the internet via mobile, with 81 percent of Nigerians getting online through their phones, Nationaldailyng reports.
Proptech’s growth in recent years can be best illustrated by taking a look at traffic stats from one of the most popular firms in the sector, PropertyPro, which launched in 2012.
The website receives around 500,000 views per month, compared with about 15,000 in the beginning of 2013, with around 90 percent of that traffic coming from mobile phones, according to CNBCAfrica.
Fikayo Ogundipe, co-founder of PropertyPro, believes that the introduction of smartphones in Nigeria during 2014 accounted for the boost that his business and the industry in general have noted during that timeframe, according to Reuters.
Real estate tech set for more growth
The growth of proptech is likely to continue as internet penetration and smartphone use spike.
Nigeria is expected to add around 53 million new mobile internet users by 2025, thanks in large part to Nigeria’s population growth and the fact that 60 percent of Nigerians are 24 or younger, according to a report by mobile industry trade body, GSMA.
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