Virtual airtime top-up business hits N447b monthly, says Mobifin

The value of Virtual Top-Up (VTU) recharge card business in Nigeria is estimated to worth N447 billion monthly or about N14 billion per day.

According to Mobifin Services Ltd, a leading online virtual airtime and data top up solution provider, which gave the figure based on its recent research, claimed that a cursory look at the number of call centres in Nigeria cum the number of people using mobile phones as well as the number of recharge cards being loaded everyday may give an insight into the size of the recharge card market.

The Guardian gathered that if a dealer prints and distributes 5,000 vouchers at N500 each on a daily basis at a profit of about N10 per card, he is expected to make a profit of about N1.5 million a month.

This, experts say, underscores how lucrative the recharge cards business can be.

Already, experts have also argued that recharge cards are the fastest selling products in Nigeria, second only to sachet water.

A telecommunications expert, Kehinde Aluko, told The Guardian that virtual airtime vending market must be developed to take advantage of the over N143.05 billion monthly recharge card spending by Nigeria‘s 145 million active mobile subscribers.

Aluko stressed that while the physical scratch card market estimated to be worth N1 trillion appeared saturated, the virtual airtime market estimated to be worth the same figure currently enjoys very low adoption.

According to the Managing Director of Mobifin Services Ltd, David Kruyt, the firm, which started operations in Nigeria three years ago, currently provides services to many local Small and Medium scale Enterprises and international companies that require airtime and data recharge for their staff.

Kruyt, who stressed that the virtual airtime recharging is simple and stressless, said Mobifin solutions range from web access to mobile applications so that anyone alike can recharge locally or from anywhere in the world.

He said Mobifin consolidated all airtime requirements across multiple networks to a single account, which can be billed once a month giving you the opportunity to recharge all cliental or employee base.

“Mobifin also has a promotional service for airtime recharges for companies that would like to promote products on a rewards basis. Companies are able to top up thousands of numbers with airtime rewards related to incentives companies choose to put in place. The Mobifin corporate solution provides an online virtual recharge portal for airtime and data bundles for businesses through which you can manage your requirements across all networks as and when needed”, he stated.