Africa is starting to see an increasing number of affordable feature-rich smartphones and tablets coming to market that are bridging gaps in education, mobile banking and healthcare.
This is the view of James Munn, Qualcomm VP of business development, southern Africa, who explains that mobile operators such as Safaricom are rolling out cheaper smartphone packages in order to capture the data market.
Munn explains that mobile operators are doing this because they want to drive value-added services and local content that is relevant to African mobile users.
“Qualcomm is looking at ways to accelerate the development of faster and more affordable smartphones to the African market to break through the $100 barrier smartphone market. Operators are under huge pressure, and want to monetise on 3G networks and encourage the use of data.”
Munn says Qualcomm is also investing in research and development to produce processors for cheaper tablets. He adds that education will be one of the key drivers of tablet adoption in Africa.
In addition to education, Qualcomm is targeting the healthcare segment, by developing mobile technologies to help doctors and nurses rapidly access and share information.
Late last year, the Eastern Cape Health Department, in partnership with Qualcomm and MTN, rolled out a mobile health system that saw 50 public-sector nurses receive 3G smartphones.
The project, which has been running for nearly a year, enabled nurses to access medical and patient information, as well as to collaborate more efficiently. Munn says Qualcomm is in discussions with government to extend the project to other hospitals in SA, but nothing has been confirmed as yet.
Qualcomm recently released the Snapdragon S4 mobile processor that uses 28nm technology and integrated 3G and LTE. Qualcomm's next generation of Snapdragon processors have been said to power Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8-based PCs.
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