climate and comms

Government authorities have a key role to play in facilitating the emergence of a digital economy.    Their mission does not only entail adopting and enforcing appropriate and effective regulations but also ensuring that existing infrastructure is leveraged for optimal utilization.   The participants in this strategic workshop will work on ways to make governments and regulators true catalysts for digitalization, with the support of all sector players. This  is the subject matter of a discussion to be held at the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan next week.  These are my initial thoughts.  All comments welcome. In Africa we have seen the emergence of a mobile telephony market which went from zero to over a billion phones in just over two decades.   The mobile industry requires tight regulation because of the use of a scarce resource – spectrum.    The role of Government has thus, of necessity,   been important in ...

According to McKinsey shareholder returns on telecom assets are down 60% over the last 4 years in the Middle East Africa (MEA) region. ( http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/telecommunications/our-insights : Telecommunications industry at Cliffs edge).     The main culprit is stagnating growth.   MEA includes mature markets like those in the Middle East where (mobile) penetration levels are close to 150% as well as high growth markets like Ethiopia where penetration is below 50%.    It is thus not useful to undertake analyses on an aggregate basis.   The mature markets are where data revenues are starting to show signs of rapid growth –but the markets are saturated.    In many African markets – particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa [1] – the decline in ARPU (average revenue per user) is no longer offset by subscriber growth and there is soon to be a decline in revenues and profitability. In order to profit from the explosion...

The mobile operators have been the ‘unicorns’ of Africa for the last 20 years.    Consistently outperforming, not only their global peers, but also all other sectors in Africa – even resources.    Historically African MNO’s have enjoyed higher EBITDA margins than their developed market peers – but it seems the African mobile fairy tale is coming to an end as we approach the bewitching hour of midnight.   The nasty sisters of MTN’s Nigerian Cinderella have reared their ugly heads with the imposition of a punitive $5.2bn fine.     Like Apple, whose once unstoppable iPhone sales have started to slow, most African MNO’s   need to come up with something new and smart or risk marginalisation as demand slows.     The killer App in Africa to date has been voice – but this market is saturated now with   customers from the very bottom of the pyramid – and so voice ARPU’s have declined.    According...

The mobile ecosystem is alive and well and flourishing and reflects its current status as the globally dominant (and growing) industry  that is becoming increasingly integrated into every aspect of our lives.    The Barcelona extravaganza which is notable for two things.  Firstly its sheer size – upwards of 60 000 delegates dwarfing anything ever held in Cannes ( when I last visited the show) and secondly,  the absence of the largest company in the sector – Apple.   Never known to follow the crowd – Apple rightly or wrongly uses its own platform ( in San Francisco)  to make its announcements and thereby retains its mystique or displays its sheer arrogance – depending on your perspective. That Mobile will continue to permeate every aspect of modern life is beyond doubt.   The first phase of GSM where voice was the killer app has now been replaced by data and most particularly Internet access and mobile applications.  So Mobile expands beyo...

We in the southern part of the UK have started to see our Indian summer start to slowly fade as we get into this first week of October.    It has been a wonderful but disorientating week with temperatures in the high 20’s (80’s F) – and clear blue skies - I could have sworn this was Jo’burg in Summer.   All that was missing was the swimming pools ! Well I know that parts of the mid-West have also had some great weather.  Indeed in the good ol’  US of A October has become known as  National Cyber Security Awareness month.    Who would have thought ten years ago that a whole month would be ‘honoured’ with such a strange moniker.     Well I guess 10 years ago no one would have predicted that we would have become so utterly dependent on the Web – our every waking and in some instances sleeping moments have some Web connection.    E-mail, social-media,  telephony,  shopping, business, entertainment, gaming  – ju...

Google have just announced with some fanfare that they have created a mobile money eco-system.   Android users can now use their devices fitted with NFC chips to make payments at selected Points of Sale in the US.   This will only be launched on a limited scale some time in the Summer.  It is not actually ready yet. ( http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/coming-soon-make-your-phone-your-wallet.html ) There is no doubt that those of us in the ‘advanced’ West will value the utility of being able to swipe our phones (which have become extensions of our very beings) when we buy coffee  - the Starbucks app has been out for a while – ( http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps ) or when we make our day to day purchases.   It will be  ‘cool’ just as it is cool today to flash an NFC enabled credit card at an NFC enabled POS when making small value purchases. However I would argue that the utility,  of the full functionality of mobile money transa...