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The
un-wired continent: Africa's mobile success story
Vanessa
Gray
December 31, 2006
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/265616/38
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Published in
Spring in Economía Exterior (No. 36), this 7-page paper explores
trends in mobile telephone use on the African continent. According
to author Vanessa Gray, "[t]he story of African telecommunications
is undoubtedly mobile."
Drawing on International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) databases, Gray shares a variety of
figures and patterns to illustrate and explain the success of mobile
telephony in Africa. For example:
- The number
of mobile subscribers passed the number of fixed lines in Africa
in 2001, and the total number of mobile subscribers at the end
of 2004 stood at 76 million. This represents a tripling in the
total (fixed and mobile) telephone penetration - from 3.5% in
1999 to 11.5% in 2004.
- By 2004,
almost 75% of all African telephone subscribers used mobile; the
figure was even higher in Sub-Sahara, where more than 4 out of
5 telephone subscribers use a mobile. In Nigeria, for example,
mobile telephony has helped to increase total telephone penetration
from 0.5% to 8% between 1999 and 2004. Gray calls this "the
highest ratio of mobile to total telephone subscribers of any
region in the world."
- In 2004
alone, almost 15 million people in Africa joined the mobile cellular
subscriber base - a figure equivalent to the total number of (fixed
and mobile) telephone subscribers on the continent in 1996.
- According
to Gray, Africa's mobile market has also been the fastest growing
of any region over the last 5 years. The mobile penetration of
9.1 per 100 inhabitants was nearly 3 times the fixed rate.
The author
indicates that this growth in mobile telephony "has been critical
for enhancing access to telecommunications in a region where fixed
lines remain very limited." While on average there are only
3 fixed lines for 100 Africans, she says, the rate is even lower
in Sub-Sahara Africa, where it stands at 1.6 to 100.
The success
of mobile telephony on this content can be explained, Gray thinks,
by several factors, including: the ability of mobile operators to
provide mobile coverage more rapidly; the fact that mobile networks
are often easier to deploy, operate, and manage than conventional
fixed lines; a high degree of liberalisation and competition in
the mobile sector that has brought down prices and motivated operators
to be more service-oriented; and coverage (whereas fixed telephones
are often limited to major African cities, it was estimated that
- by the end of 2004 - more than 60% of the population in Africa
would be within range of a mobile signal.
However, despite
these advances and high growth rates (even in Sub-Sahara Africa),
Gray stresses that the continent's overall mobile penetration is
the lowest of any region. It stood at 9.1% in 2004, compared to
the global figure of 27%, and - in Sub-Saharan Africa - an average
of only 7.3% of the population had a mobile phone in that year.
In some Sub-Saharan countries, including Ethiopia, fewer than 1
out of 100 people had a mobile phone in 2004.
Gray suggests
that there is a persisting need to provide access to those who have
been excluded - mainly, rural dwellers and lower-income citizens.
Research detailed here suggests that low-income households are prepared
to spend relatively large amounts of their revenue on telecommunications
because it helps them save money in other areas. In response to
such findings, a number of governments, including South Africa,
Kenya, and Uganda, have obliged mobile operators to provide a certain
population coverage as part of their license conditions and/or require
them to install community service telephones. Also, leading mobile
handset manufacturers have been working to further reduce the price
of mobile handsets and to craft "Ultra-Low-Cost Handsets".
Prepaid mobile has also lowered the threshold of telephone ownership,
the author claims. These advances, she surmises, will further drive
growth rates in Africa's mobile telephony.
The article
also includes examples of concrete impacts that spikes in the use
of the mobile phone have made. For instance, farmers in Uganda have
used this information and communication technology (ICT) to find
out about the latest crop prices. According to Gray, "Instant
and direct access to market prices increases their revenues, provides
them with valuable information to negotiate and protects them from
being cheated by middlemen. The service reaches millions of farmers
every week." Another example derives from South Africa, where
the Compliance Service uses short message service (SMS) to remind
tuberculosis (TB) patients to take their medication. Gray claims
that this strategy "has substantially decreased the number
of treatment failures" - presumably, saving lives. In short,
as illustrated by the data that Gray shares here, mobile phones
are increasingly impacting Africans in positive ways by providing
a point of contact, fostering participation in the economic system,
and improving relationships with friends and family.
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