Emerging-market firms dominate mobile industry..

by Karen Coppock
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The GSMA's Mobile Business Briefing and Wireless Intelligence teams just published a new report ranking mobile operators by the total number of subscribers worldwide.

The top 5 - by total number of connections - are:
China Mobile - 525M
Vodafone - 310M
Telefonica - 202M
America Movil Group - 187M
Airtel Group - 170M

Three of the top five are based in emerging markets - China Mobile in China, America Movil in Mexico and Airtel in India. Although Telefonica is based in the UK, its growth and ranking is largely based on its Latin American operations.

China Mobile's incredible size is mostly due to the immense scale of its home market - it is home to almost a fifth of the world's population. It did branch out and invest in a Pakistani operations in 2007, but has not made another investment since then and most of its subscribers are in China.

Telefonica and America Movil are de facto duopolies in the Latin American market. Telefonica has branched out and invested in operations in other European countries and even in Africa, whereas America Movil has stayed closer to home. America Movil, lead by Carlos Slim - who beat out Bill Gates for the title of the richest man in the world - has always had aspirations to tackle the US market, but has had little real success there.

Airtel jumped from 8th to 5th place due to its investment in Zain's African operations. Imagine it will be a while before it digests these new operations and is ready to make another significant investment, but it obviously has an appetite to be a global player.

Due to the vast size of emerging markets and the fact that for many of its citizens, it will be the mobile phone, and not a computer, that opens the door to the Internet, emerging-market mobile operators will likely continue to dominate the rankings in the years to come.

Planning for the Future: Latin America Leads the Way on Laptops for Kids

What started as a trickle three years ago in Uruguay is turning into a flood. That nation's decision in 2007 to purchase 100,000 ultra low-cost OLPC netbooks has created a domino effect across Latin America. Peru recently announced a deal to buy another 260,000 OLPC units for primary schoolchildren, bringing its total to 590,000. Argentina, meanwhile, took delivery of the first of 250,000 Intel Classmate PC laptops for technical high school students and the mayor of Buenos Aires announced an initiative to buy 190,000 laptops for primary school students. Brazil has also jumped in, launching a bid in February to acquire 1.5 million low-cost laptops. Latin America now leads the developing world in efforts to provide laptops for every student, with Uruguay becoming the first to give every child in primary schools their own computer for use at school and home. The Inter American Development Bank estimates that the number of children in the region covered by these programs will jump from 1.5 million to 30 million by 2015.

The move by Latin American governments to provide laptops to the region's children (and its primary schoolchildren in particular) is notable for several reasons. It marks an increased commitment on the part of these governments to raising educational performance, one of the factors many experts cite as a reason for Latin America's economic underperformance relative to Asia. It also signals that the region's governments are serious about building a tech-savvy workforce in order to better compete for knowledge economy jobs in the future. Yet these deals also demonstrate that governments believe that providing children with these computers will at the same time build local technology ecosystems in the here and now. All of these elements mean more work and skill development for local companies and workers.

These developments also present an opportunity for multinational firms. One-to-one computer deployments are enormously complex undertakings, requiring comprehensive plans for capacity building, teacher training, technical support and repair services in order to succeed. Many countries hope to build that capacity locally, but in the short term companies willing to partner with local enterprises might find numerous opportunities to provide products and services. Getting in early might also position firms for the future, when the tech-ready workforces produced by these programs enter the consumer base and workforce. Spotting the early signs of a blossoming tech economy can pay big dividends down the road.

Census starts in India

by Karen Coppock
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Ever wonder how many mobile phones are in use in India? how many broadband connections per household?

This and many other questions will soon be answered through the collection of 2011 Census data, which began in a few Indian cities yesterday. For the first time, people will be asked if they have a broadband connection and/or a mobile phone.

The data will be collected by hand, by workers going door-to-door with paper surveys...then the data will be entered into a database. It is a shame that mobile phones, PDAs or some sort of smart phone isn't being used to collect the data - would be much quicker and also would reduce data transcription errors.

The US also started collecting census data and we are also using paper census surveys, Mexico and Indonesia start their census data collection next month - with house-to-house visits and paper surveys - and the UK starts next year - also with paper surveys - so it appears that Census bureaus across the globe (developed and developing world) are behind with regards to technology innovations...I should note that Estonia appears to be breaking out and will have an eCensus for the first time.

The good news is, a great deal of new data is being collected around the world and will be available for businesses, governments and non-profit organizations over the next few months. Check out the UN cite on the 2010 World Population and Housing Census Program for info on which country is conducting a census and when.

The Face of Consumer Business Growth in Emerging Markets? A Woman

International Women's Day has passed, but we still have the importance of women - as consumers and catalysts for development - on our minds. And we're not the only ones. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu recently reported that women currently control nearly $12 trillion, or two-thirds, of the $18 trillion total global consumer spending. Additionally, women's earned incomes are growing faster than men's in developing countries, at 8.1 percent compared 5.8 percent. These figures underscore the important role women have in household purchase decisions and provide evidence of women's increasing buying power.

While women are emerging as a more powerful force in the global economy, their role in development is well established. Empowering women with education and economic opportunities can have a compounding effect on broad-based social and economic development. Women reinvest the vast majority of their income in their families and communities. And an extra year of secondary schooling increases women's earning potential by 10 to 20 percent. For these and other reasons, members of the development community, including microfinance institutions and several major international organizations, have a strong focus on women.

Women make up half of the population in emerging markets, yet they are often overlooked by multinational corporations. A study sponsored by the GSMA Development Fund and Cherie Blair Foundation, and authored Vital Wave Consulting, found that women are 21% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man in the developing world. Closing the mobile phone "gender gap” is worth $13 billion annually to mobile communications service providers. Additionally, the mobile phone provides a host of social and economic benefits to women.* There's an opportunity for companies to recognize the increasing influence of women as customers, purchase influencers and broader agents of development. Those that do -- and provide products and services that are closely linked to the needs of a woman and her family -- can tap into this emerging consumer base and help improve their bottom line as well as the quality of life of families across the globe.

*Join Vital Wave Consulting's next Speaker Series on Thursday, March 25, 2010 where Dr. Karen Coppock will present the results of Women and Mobile: A Global Opportunity, the first comprehensive study of mobile phones and women in the developing world. Details and Registration.

Huffington Post Spotlights Vital Wave Consulting CEO

The Huffington Post’s Jim Luce just published an article about Vital Wave Consulting CEO Brooke Partridge. The article highlights Brooke’s thought leadership in making ICT sustainable and profitable in the developing world and traces her path into this pioneering work.

For those of us that work at Vital Wave Consulting, it’s wonderful to see Brooke’s leadership and the “behind the scenes” work of the company recognized. Brooke leadership comes out not just in envisioning the possibilities of technology for the developing world, but in understanding how to put all the pieces together to make a good idea a sustainable business, from substantiating the business case to structuring the necessary partnerships to getting organizational buy-in for investments.

Congrats to Brooke on this well-deserved recognition!

Vital Wave's mWomen Catalyzing Action

March 8 was International Women's Day, meant to highlight the pivotal role that women play in their societies and the unequal status that many women still have in many parts of the world. In the days leading up to it, the GSMA Development Fund hosted a workshop in London on how mobile phones are helping women to empower themselves and to raise their standard of living. During this workshop, cross-sector leaders from organizations as diverse as CARE International, Telenor and the South African government discussed how to accelerate women’s ownership of mobile phones for social and economic empowerment.

These discussions centered on a wide range of issues including overcoming the barriers to phone ownership by women and tailoring mobile services – such as mLearning, mFinance, mHealth -- to the unique needs of women. The workshop came just weeks after the launch of Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity, a new report authored by Vital Wave Consulting and sponsored by the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, which is getting considerable notice in the press.

The report, which found that closing the mobile phone gender gap could add 300 million new female subscribers and represents a $13 billion annual revenue opportunity for mobile operators, was recently cited in the Washington Post's Post Tech blog. Vital Wave CEO Brooke Partridge was quoted in the article as saying “Cell phones are more ubiquitous in the developing world so you have to look at development through cell phones because people don’t have alternative forms of access."

Mobile World Congress Puts the Spotlight on Maturing mServices

The 2010 Mobile World Congress, held last month in Barcelona, featured the usual array of cutting-edge devices and new service offerings from handset makers and operators from around the globe. While Microsoft's launch of its new mobile operating system got the biggest headlines, some of the most intriguing discussions that took place centered on the increasing maturity of mobile services aimed at emerging market consumers. Gavin Krugel, the GSM Association's director of mobile banking strategy, noted at the event that one billion people in the world have access to a mobile phone but not a bank account. And Krugel said that there are now 40 million people worldwide using mobile money, a number that is growing daily. In Uganda alone, 18,000 people join the ranks of mobile money users each day.

The development of mServices has long held great promise, but the lack of a clear business case has hampered their growth - until now. Mobile money, despite regulatory hurdles, is leading the way. And the plethora of mHealth applications on display at the Congress demonstrates that it too is beginning to take off. The case has been furthered by reports such as Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity, authored by Vital Wave Consulting and sponsored by the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. The study, which included surveys of over 2,000 women in developing countries, found that nearly half of women (and two-thirds of women business owners), are interested in services such as money transfers via their mobile phones, a number that is even higher in countries such as Kenya where knowledge of these services is widespread.

Mobile services are positioned to become highly strategic for scaling business and programs in emerging markets. This will likely be the case for technology companies and a range of vertical markets (such as financial institutions, agricultural firms, and even governments). Yet mServices are still a nascent arena. Successful scale requires careful planning up front and an understanding of the conditions in each individual market. For example, where banks hold significant political and economic power it may be necessary to include those institutions in any mFinance services offering. Otherwise, those banks may view mobile banking as a threat. Taking a hard look at the market dynamics - including industry, regulatory or competitive barriers - can make the development of a successful mServices strategy that much more likely.