NFC, Near Field Communication - in simply we can tell a technology that lets two devices interact with each other in close proximity, closure like 2 inches. While I see this technologies’ adoption is going high in India and Asia-pacific countries, I would request to know what is the adoption rate of NFC in African continents.
Many companies are coming with newer technologies in NFC to build smarter solutions related to transportation, event management, payments, healthcare, manufacturing and logistics. Recently we also developed one mobile app which will monitor traffic offences around the city.
So, if anyone here could initiate his views on how NFC is adopted in African regions, we can reciprocate our knowledge furthermore.
NFC seems to be a superfluous add-on to devices for the average Nigerian. Globalisation ensures that we buy the same Samsung Galaxy phone or iPhone used in the USA, however we do not utilise the modern features effectively.
My LG TV has NFC. I don’t even know how to use that. My Samsung Galaxy phone has NFC and I don’t know how to use it too.
IMHO, I think we still have a lot to worry about in Nigeria and NFC isn’t on the priority list for now
ZERO ADOPTION is my answer.
This is due to the fact that there are not enough service offerings around NFC not because it can’t work.
I think it could work tho and it’s a far more rugged solution than most. I know some guys who are doing some work with NFC and payments for schools. http://sanwo.me/ (I can intro them) and they have some good traction and think a product with a good proposition around NFC would be a keeper.
The most interesting use for NFC has to be payment: Android Pay, Samsung Pay, Apple Pay. They all use NFC and fingerprint authentication for security.
I think it isn’t the preferred means of payment in Nigeria currently because of lack of implementation.
One might argue that most of the android devices doesn’t have NFC in Nigeria but I feel if Nigerians insist they want NFC, Tecno or Gionee will give them NFC and then remove the device camera or something…
File transfer protocols, access information at an event, carrying an NFC enabled card as your identity could be some useful features which could be much more beneficial with NFC phones.
Almost all high end phones carry this feature, but I see none of the time it gets used and sometimes users don’t even know that this exists.
As @lordzouga said, companies should try to incorporate this feature into the low-cost phones as well.
Basically, companies should focus around developing solutions/app which would use such features in order to maximum use of resources in the phone.
Apple has come up with NFC based payment solutions and such as other companies (whether phone manufacturers or app builders) should develop solutions around the unused features of our smartphones.
