Taking mobile services into Africa

Johannesburg, 11 Nov 2004

Africa has been the fastest growing mobile market over the past few years, averaging 65% year-on-year growth, and wireless application service providers (WASPs) need to look at capitalising on this.

Members of SA`s WASP community discussed the potential for taking services north into the rest of the continent at the First Tuesday Vodacom Mobile Connect event, held at the Sandton Convention Centre on Tuesday evening.

Issues raised included whether many African nations are ready for value-added data services, the amount of mobile coverage provided by African networks and what types of retail services might appeal to an African market.

"While it is acknowledged that there is a lack of certain infrastructure - such as ATMs and the like - in certain nations, this very fact can allow WASPs to set the mobile phone up as the infrastructure," says Fundamo executive director, Craig Saks.

"There are a lot of opportunities for banking and payment services via cellphone, and there is the opportunity to educate people in Africa on the use of data services through pushing data, especially the kind of data that would otherwise require a phone call to access, such as bank balances and branch locations."

He says the key to successful roll-out of such services lies in looking at each market on its own merits, as no two markets in Africa are the same.

Daniel Annerose, CEO of Manobi, a Senegalese company that develops mobile services specifically for rural areas in developing countries, agrees.

"You cannot simply export services that have worked in SA. There may be plenty of opportunity for these types of services, but it is necessary to tailor them specifically to the region they will be rolled out in."

He points to a system developed by his country, specifically for the some 200 000 fishermen along Senegal`s coast.

"Manobi has developed a rescue system for the fishermen, using GSM and satellite tracking, which can cover areas up to 70km out to sea. This is the type of tailoring to local needs we are talking about."

While the majority of WASPs discussing the issue felt the provisioning of retail services in Africa could still be some way off, Lazarus Muchenje, Vodacom`s executive head for business partners, said there is a lot of potential in certain countries.

"For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both music and football are huge - if you think Beckham is popular, you haven`t seen what Congo footballers are treated like - and so there is a massive opportunity for correctly packaged services that exploit this potential.

"The key is to customise the products to suit the intended market, rather than trying to get the market to suit the products you bring in."