Just a quick note to point to an interesting interview with an official of MTN Uganda at:
Appfrica: Interview With MTN’s Erik van Veen - Part 1
These points caught my eye:
(…) revenues per user, are very low in Africa by international standards, and require a low cost operating model if the Operator is to be profitable. If you look at East Africa, new customers joining the mobile category spend about $4 per month – that is not a lot!
(…) I see Asian, especially operators from the sub-continent, playing a bigger role in Africa as they have been able to survive in cut-throat, highly competitive, low tariff environments in their home markets.
(…) And then you have to deal with the cost of doing business in Africa. Infrastructure and productivity remain major hurdles that add costs to the P&L. Our own success, relative to other companies in most African economies, has backfired on mobile operators in Africa, where governments see these as an easy source of tax income. In East Africa, excise tax (read luxury tax) has been institutionalized within the mindset of financial ministerial policy on tax. Uganda has the 2nd highest tax burden on mobile services in the world, Tanzania 3rd. Just think about it – in Uganda we hand over nearly a third of the cost of every call to the government. What a shame!
It is a short sighted initiative that is impeding growth of the ICT industry.
Very interesting read!
Quick side notes:
There was a recent article that Malawi is considering to add (or has already added) a 10% tax on all airtime. I can’t find the Daily Times article online any more (note to myself: make a screenshot next time) See this Daily Times article.
There’s also White African’s catch phrase to keep in mind.
This recent Twitter announcement is disappointing on a personal level, but also on a more global level as White African discusses:
Twitter represents a change in communication. By acting as a global gateway for updates via SMS (or the web), that then updates all of your followers, Twitter succeeded in breaking ground in one-to-many messaging. There have been a couple times over the past year where Twitter was used in Africa to get news out that wasn’t possible in any other format.
And in the comment thread he explains:
What’s missing for it to work in Africa is not just the sending of updates, but the receiving of your contacts updates. That really is what created the network effect for Twitter, and why it can’t succeed where it’s not available.
In Africa, not having SMS is a deal killer. Though there would undoubtedly be users who access it through the web - as is true throughout the rest of the world, true penetration in Africa can only come through services that can be fully operational using only SMS. Why I think this is particularly disappointing is that those third generation Twitter services that could really serve the needs of both ordinary Africans and humanitarians globally will not be built now.
The really interesting thing to me, so that Twitter doesn’t have to shoulder the load by itself, is the opportunity to build services that are separate and independent, but also equal. I guess the closest analogy I have would be to Jabber in this case - where anyone can run a server and that makes the whole greater than the sum of it’s parts.
A very interesting thread, which I’d like to recommend here.
My observations in Blantyre:
- Despite the relative high cost, nearly everybody has a cell phone.
- The top present to get for your girlfriend is a cell phone (!).
- Most people use prepaid cards. See the current tariff plans at Zain (previously Celtel) and tnm.
- Cell phones are helping to connect remote places, that never had a telephone connection. Villagers can hear more often and directly from family members that have moved to the cities or emigrated to SA, the USA and other countries. Farmers can compare market prices, receive weather updates. See Cy’s video.
- Internet services are relatively expensive. Out of reach for personal use. Connecting via fixed line is slow and error prone. The way forward is wifi. Despite these encouraging developments, Internet will remain out of reach for most people for many years to come.
Published 6/15/2008
in africa.
I just spent over half an hour looking for the Anamed website… can’t believe I haven’t referenced it yet.
Here’s the link to the Anamed webpage. They’ve published a couple of books on the medicinal use of common tropical plants such as guava leaves, pawpaw leaves, asthma weed and anti-malaria trees.
Check out this music video by John Legend. It’s part of the Show Me Campaign.
John (…) recently shot and released a music video in Tanzania for the Show Me Campaign to introduce his fans to critical global issues. Watch this story of a young boy overwhelmed by the weight of the world who is asking questions and searching for answers.
For more see: http://www.showmecampaign.org/index1.html
The International Herald Tribune writes:
29. MALAWI
Blame Madonna. Safarigoers tended to overlook Malawi, but that has changed since she began her effort to adopt a 1-year-old boy from this tiny African country that lies within the Great Rift Valley. Next July, the luxury lodge Pumulani (www.pumulani.com) is set to open 10 villas on spectacular Lake Malawi, home to rare cichlids and pied kingfishers.
All listed in the NYT