I swear, there is money to be made on these streets...

👆 That's a very Nigerian expression. And I have a good reason for using it.

I keep hearing the same worry in the FMCG circles: consumer brands are being forced to sachet everything down to whatever the average Nigerian can afford today.

Soap. Seasoning. Cereals. Beverages. Water. Airtime. Data. Etc.

The fear is that sachetisation is a margin problem. A sign the market is shrinking.

Evidence that a growing share of the population has moved from the top of the K to the bottom, transitioning from financial resilience and wealth creation to economic vulnerability, stagnant incomes, and prolonged financial hardship.

But has the market shrunk? Really?

MTN Nigeria's H1 2026 numbers say the opposite.

The opportunity hasn't shrunk. It's moved — to a different point on the K.

The results: → Profit after tax: ₦707.5bn (+70.6%) → Pre-tax profit: ₦1.09 trillion (+75.4%) → Revenue: ₦3 trillion (+25.9%) → 92.2 million subscribers, 4.9 million added in six months

Here's the part every executive selling into Africa should sit with: Across MTN's entire footprint — 16+ markets — Nigeria has one of the lowest ARPUs in the Group. Nigerians generate roughly $3.60 a month each. Ghanaians generate $6.76. South Africans, $5.32.

And yet Nigeria is MTN Group's single biggest profit engine. Almost half of everything MTN Group made last year came from here...

Critical review reveals what has driven this...

Income-Matched Pricing.

Not premiumisation. Not discounting.

Pricing architecture built around how the largest segment of people actually get paid — daily, in cash, unevenly — not around the salary calendar of a shrinking formal/middle-class segment. ₦200 for 1GB. ₦500 for a day's browsing. ₦1,500 entry-level monthly.

That's not sachetisation as retreat. It's sachetisation as infrastructure.

Too many businesses — banks, insurers, FMCG, Telcos, even SaaS — are still chasing the same shrinking segment, fighting each other for the same premium customer.

At the same time, the real volume sits untouched below them...

The unlock MTN found — granular, income-matched value for the 90% — is available in almost every category in this market. Most brands just haven't built the pricing architecture to reach it.

Think: 'bite-sized packs of middle-class living — delivered at the last mile and priced for the base of the pyramid.'

That's not a discount strategy. That's the growth strategy.

The market didn't get poorer. It got more honest about what it actually pays and how.

The question worth asking in your next strategy meeting isn't "how do we protect margin?

It's: what does our product look like at ₦200?