BitX, the Singapore based Bitcoin exchange with offices in Cape Town, South Africa and Jakarta, Indonesia has announced its entry to the Nigerian market. Its entry to the African nation allows local users to gain access to BitX’s Bitcoin exchange, Bitcoin wallet and API services.
By entering the Nigerian market, BitX is prepared to gain a foothold in the largest economies of Africa. As a part of its strategy to focus on emerging markets, the company has already launched its services in Indonesia in the beginning of this year. Nigeria has been in the company’s target list along with Indonesia for more than a year now. BitX expects Nigeria to become one of the leading markets for its operations. The fast growing economy with increasing entrepreneurial spirit among the population of Nigeria has contributed positively to the company’s positive outlook.
According to the CEO of BitX – Marcus Swanepoel, the company had been receiving a lot of requests for its services from Nigeria. BitX has already started working with other players in the country to introduce new products in the market.
Nigeria has been on the fast track of economic growth from the past couple of years. It outdid South Africa in terms of GDP after it achieved a total of $509.9 billion in GDP against South Africa’s $350.6 billion in the year 2013. In spite of having an extremely well performing economy, Nigeria has considerably low smart phone penetration, which may not act in favour of BitX. According to the statistics available with GSM Association, the country has less than 15 percent of registered mobile subscribers who own smartphones.
Even though BitX has entered a challenging market, it is not the only Bitcoin company to do so. Earlier this year, ICE3X became the first Bitcoin exchange to enter the Nigerian market. ICE3X is using VoguePay, a local payment processor for selling and buying Bitcoin and Litecoin with the local currency naira.