How To Become A Recharge Card Distributor In Nigeria

Mobile phones have become an integral part of our lives. Although a fairly recent technology, it has attained a mind-blowing level of penetration among Nigerians. The acceptance level has skyrocketed. Today people from all segments of society can boast of a phone. But what fuels these phones? Simple! Recharge cards! Although mobile technology has reached an advanced level and still growing, recharge cards are still an essential requirement. Especially if you wish to carry out any meaningful activity with your mobile phone.

SEE ALSO: How to Start GSM Recharge Card Business in Nigeria

Today, recharge cards are used for subscribing to data and also for voice calls. Whatever your motive for buying recharge cards, they are an invaluable requirement for communication. Nigeria is a huge market for recharge card business. This is more so with the high population the country boasts of. A tremendous amount of calls are made per day. This directly translates to hundreds of billions being made each day by telecom service providers.

The Major Players

Nigeria has overtaken South Africa to become the largest telecom market in Africa. Before now, the latter was the leading telecom market. The sheer population size of Nigeria has largely contributed to this growth. There are several players in the Nigerian telecom market. However, there are major players in the industry, they dominate the country’s telecoms service provider arena.

These major players include MTN (A South African telecom company and currently the biggest), Globacom or Glo as is commonly called (having Nigerian origin, and the second largest), Airtel (from India), and 9 Mobile (formerly Etisalat) which is trying to emerge out of a prolonged financial crisis which led to a change in its ownership.

These companies form the bulk of telecom service providers in Nigeria. Their services range from the provision of voice and data services to clients. To enjoy their services, you need to have their SIM cards.

The Scope of Business

You must have a clear picture of your scope of business. In other words, knowing the size of your start-up is important. By size, we imply getting multiple distributorships or single distributorship. By multiple distributorship, you can choose to become a distributor of one telecoms company or more telecoms companies. There are always people who want to become multiple distributors. Hence, you might find an individual becoming a distributor of MTN, Glo, 9Mobile (formerly Etisalat) and Airtel. Having a clear vision of this is necessary.

Distributorship Rights Procedure

An agreement must be established between you and the telecommunications company before obtaining distributorship rights. Each telecom company has its own unique procedure for become its distributor. However, one common factor applicable to all is that there has to be an agreement or contract struck between the two parties (prospective distributor and the telecom operators)  before the commencement of business.

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For MTN Nigeria, this contract is called a Trade Partnership agreement. Business Associates are what Glo calls its distributors, while 9 Mobile and Airtel have a Distributions Partner and Channel Partners agreements. Informing the company about your intentions for business is a common step across board. You can contact the telecoms companies either by visiting their websites or by going to their Head offices. These are located in all state capitals.

Knowing Your Scale of Operation

A good understanding of the dynamics of this business is important. Becoming a major distributor allows you to deal directly with the company. Major distributors are at the top of the recharge card business chain. Investments are usually substantial. This typically runs into millions. Investments can be as high as N10,000,000.00 and above. Fully understanding this will allow you to plan according to your financial strength.

SEE ALSO: How to Become a Call Center Agent in Nigeria

Drafting a Business Plan

In conclusion, after having done all the background checks and conducting feasibility studies, you should use the gathered information to write a solid business plan. The business plan can determine the fate of the business, as a shabbily written business plan has the capacity of derailing the business venture. If you cannot write a good one yourself, seek the services of experts who are skilled in this area. They will certainly produce a business plan that will be of great significance to the business.