Africa and the mobile web - an opportunity grasped

Thursday, 04 February 2010 11:14

Facebook and Twitter have found loyal users in Africa. Some say that a lack of fixed-line infrastructure has somehow forced mobile users into using these socially-oriented functions. Michael Schwartz challenges this perception.

Anyone who believes that Facebook is merely a means whereby adolescents send each other meaningless messages is probably in the prevailing mind-set of a European or North American. Facebook is emerging as key to accessing the Internet for millions of citizens in Africa. Is this purely because of the lack of fixed-link infrastructure?

At a time when, according to the Norwegian mobile software developer Opera, African people are using their mobiles to access the Internet, it should not be too surprising to learn that Facebook is turning into the African continent’s most-visited website. Competition among telecoms providers has lowered prices where it has been allowed, which is increasingly frequently. Mobile technology can also apply state-of-the-art technology quickly and cheaply when compared with fixed-line predecessors.

The mobile web is well and truly established: Facebook is not alone in making inroads into the enthusiastic telecoms market that is Africa. Opera has identified Twitter as the ninth most visited site in South Africa and Kenya. Google, too features high in African popularity stakes - only in Kenya does it take a backseat, yielding to Yahoo.

To keep up with the news back home, move to Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia - CNN and the BBC are top ten performers on these countries’ Internet rankings. And if you do get home-sick for video clips of Manchester United, Youtube is exceptionally popular in Egypt and Libya (third and fourth most popular websites respectively.

It is true to say that mobile technology offers Africa the chance of a lifetime for its citizens to transform their lives. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Information Economy Report 2009: Trends and Outlook in Turbulent Times yields essential findings for anyone with an interest in African mobile technology - or who believes in its empowering role:

• faster growth in mobile subscriptions in Africa than in any other region;
• ten times as many mobile subscriptions in Africa as a whole over fixed-line and twenty times as many as in sub-Saharan Africa;
• a surge in African subscriptions from 54 million to 350 million in the five years to end 2008.

Individual markets show stunning success in several cases. Gabon, as an example, boasts an average mobile subscription rate of one subscription per head of population. Uganda saw mobile penetration soar from 0.2% in 1995 to 23% at end 2008.

There are the exceptions. UNCTAD mentions five African countries - Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia - which still have  have a mobile penetration of less than ten per 100 inhabitants. Thankfully, it is only five countries - a tribute to the other markets’ successes. On a more personal note, Developing Telecoms is happy to resume contact with Djibouti; the last time we found anything to mention was in 2006, when we looked at the EASSy cable project.

Some commentators point to high prices for broadband technology and a corresponding lack of uptake. This is worthy of further comment. And yet, all the extremely encouraging statistics listed above indicate that Africans are embracing the wonderful opportunity that is the mobile.

More info:

• www.opera.com
• www.unctad.org

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