Sub-Saharan Africa has long been deprived of the cornucopia of media enjoyed in richer places. It was not until China began to export $50 black-and-white televisions to Africa about a decade ago that broadcasting took off outside the main cities. That new, much bigger market has led to big changes. Asif Sheikh of A24, an online-news channel in Nairobi, says Kenyan broadcasters have gone from showing almost exclusively Western-made programmes in 2005 to 80% African ones now. Local content is booming in other media too: talk radio, music videos and televangelism have all proved lucrative. But for all types of content, everyone agrees that the next big business opportunity is in mobile devices.The arrival of three submarine cables to Africa in the past year has quadrupled data speeds and cut prices by 90%. Since mobile-phone coverage is far better than fixed-line availability, the result has been that the cellphone is swiftly becoming Africa’s computer of choice. By some counts there are already 84m mobiles in Africa with at least rudimentary internet connectivity. A $90 smartphone made by China’s Huawei and running Google’s Android operating system sold out in several African countries in less than a month.To read this report in The Economist in full, see:
www.economist.com/node/18529875
Mobile telecoms in Africa: Makers of mobile devices see a new growth market
Sub-Saharan Africa has long been deprived of the cornucopia of media enjoyed in richer places. It was not until China began to export $50 black-and-white televisions to Africa about a decade ago that broadcasting took off outside the main cities. That new, much bigger market has led to big changes. Asif Sheikh of A24, an online-news channel in Nairobi, says Kenyan broadcasters have gone from showing almost exclusively Western-made programmes in 2005 to 80% African ones now. Local content is booming in other media too: talk radio, music videos and televangelism have all proved lucrative. But for all types of content, everyone agrees that the next big business opportunity is in mobile devices.