Our new report - How Kenyans used +269,000,000 Gigabytes in 2018 and Forecasting the Future of Mobile Data

Aw de bodi? 

That’s hello in Krio in Sierra Leone.

Nendo and I have been busy, and I’m glad to share an update. I recently hosted ex-head of Planning at BBDO New York, Julian Cole, in Nairobi a couple of weeks ago. It was fun, and I can't wait to share our mega-list of resources which is in the final stages of getting ready to share. Those come early next week.

The real reason I'm writing is to tell you about our upcoming report The State of Mobile Data: Context, Consumption and Control. It is one of the most challenging reports I’ve ever worked on, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

As the team and I at Nendo have grown clearer on what impact we want to have on the world, we’ve developed thanks to the amount of data we have access to and analyse. 

We don’t always get it right, but we get better, and that’s what I keep score of — better questions, better at fostering curiosity and better at making predictions and hypotheses about the future.

In 2018, we had access to hundreds of millions of public social media updates, and that’s had a growing impact on my worldview. This report sees me seek to distil that within the lens of a larger business question: how to help people know more about megabytes.

The report has been a labour of love and one of the most challenging projects my team and I have ever taken on. The difference between what we did in 2013 and today, was the access we had. We’ve met with dozens of executives from the connected economy (internet, telecoms, mobile, research and other sectors) who gave us their time and pushback.

That said, the report is all-but-done. With over 30 pages of stats, stories and insights, this is a report that will keep on enlightening for months to come.

When we began in 2013/2014, Nendo launched with our first trend report. In 2014, we launched the A to Z of Kenyan Twitter. These two reports This report marks another investment into the public while adding to our body of work.

You can help by helping publicise the report when it comes out Monday. In the meantime, your tasting menu of links this week is from the report.

Kenyans consumed an estimated +269,000,000 gigabytes in 2018. My analysis with the team at Nendo boils this down to the 5 S's of the Internet, which anchor the report to give more insight into:

• Search - 96% of searches happen on Google, and they hold the key thanks to the Android mobile OS.
• Sport - Kenya's most "Google'd" word of 2016, 2017 and 2018 is "SportPesa." 15 of the top 50 sites in Kenya are either sports betting (9 companies with 11 websites) or sports content (4).
• Social - Facebook and Twitter are the country's networks of choice and critical places where Kenyans spend their time.
• Sex - Kenya has two adult websites in its top ten most visited sites. Porn, it would stand to reason, is a regular pastime. No other East African country has as many sites (2) and has them ranked as high (#5 and #8).
• Stories - Kenyans will come to use the vertical photo and video storytelling format in 2019 and beyond. More than that, local storytelling is at a resurgence and a crucial part of local content.

My question to you is would you like to take a look at the “galleys” version (this is one that publishers make as an advance copy that’s subject to small changes between now and the weekend. If so, hit reply (can’t distribute it yet but can share it with you as a weekend read to share feedback). 

The report is an embargoed version with the full report out Monday.

In the spirit of the regular Nendo report, I won’t end without a couple of stories that are true to our “tasting menu of links”, but today, they come from the upcoming report.

What to Sip (<30-sec read)

After cash, mobile money and airtime, megabytes are Kenya’s most important currency of the digital economy. 

Mark Kaigwa, The State of Mobile Data in Kenya: Context, Consumption and Controls.

What to Nibble (<5 min read)

One of the things from the report that I am waiting to hear the feedback on a view on AdTech in Kenya. AdTech (advertising technology) refers to analytics and a range of digital tools used in online advertising. I’ve covered this before in a previous newsletter last April.

The team at Nendo replicated an experiment done by Gour Lentell and his team BiNu exploring the hidden cost of advertising in terms of South African mobile user’s megabytes and how much they were ‘paying’ when visiting websites.

What we found is that Kenya’s leading media houses use between 7% and 70% on AdTech. What that means is that when you visit a soon-to-be-named mainstream media company’s website, if it takes 10 MB to load then 7 of your 10 MBs are used on AdTech, not the article/content you are loading.

What to Bite (<20 min read)

What I will plug as a long read is the report itself. If you're curious, do reply to this mail, so my team and I can share it with you. It won’t take more than a couple minutes to send it to you. 

If not, sit tight, and you’ll get it in full next week.

We're hiring

A quick ask as the team continues to grow and we are looking for more people to join in. Do let those you know who would be a good fit for us know.

We've got open roles for a strategist, client success manager, content & social media marketer and designer. Share them around and reach out to kingsley@nendo.co.ke if you have any questions.

Until Monday, have a great weekend.

Mark & Team Nendo.