The School of Mobile Vol. 2 - The Detail
Spotlight: Mobile in emerging economies
Mobile and the African opportunity
By Alexander Gregori , emerging market mobile marke�ng guru
When it comes to opportuni�es in African markets the general
official a�tude persistent among governments, corporates
and investors is one of doom and gloom. Unstable poli�cal
and economic situa�ons, military coups, corrup�on and
poverty, paired with vast country spaces and small popula�ons
(compared to for example India or China) are o�en used as
arguments against taking Africa seriously.
However, the reality is that while, generally speaking, many of the cri�cisms are based on real
challenges facing Africa, its markets do offer exci�ng opportuni�es. This is especially true for
an emerging industry such as mobile. The presence of a few “tradi�onal” companies such as
Vodafone, MTN and Zain, either as direct players or as majority shareholders in various mobile
ventures across Africa, as well as the push of new players like Obopay and AdMob into the
market a�ests to this claim.
Africa offers a number of a�ributes that are par�cularly conducive to its a�rac�veness for the
mobile industry. Firstly, and maybe most importantly, African countries suffer from a general
lack in the number of fixed telecommunica�on lines, o�en controlled by monopolies. This
not only manifests itself in a very small number of people who actually own a fixed telephone
connec�on, it also results in high fixed line telecommunica�on costs, bad service and slow
connec�on speeds. This affects business opportuni�es nega�vely. The growth in the number
of computer internet users is slow, e-commerce, with various barriers, has not taken off as it
did in other con�nents.
Secondly, a large number of Africans are “unbankable” in terms of interna�onally accepted
banking standards. This is coupled with wide open spaces, inhabited by rural communi�es,
who don’t even have access to a bank because there are no branches or ATM’s. Consequently,
business in Africa is done largely on a cash basis.
On the other hand the mobile phone penetra�on among the African populace is extremely
high, in some countries over 100% of the actual popula�on. This also translates into real
numbers. For example in South Africa over 40 million people own a cell phone, in Nigeria it
is over 60 million and even in Zimbabwe, a country suffering from devasta�ng socio-poli�cal
and economic condi�ons, every ci�zen owns at least one mobile phone. Countries with
“below par” mobile phone penetra�on such as Kenya (40%) are catching up fast and report
exponen�al growth in mobile phone ownership.
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