#SMW2014: Insights into Mobile for Africa

#SMW2014 Africa presentation by Justin Spratt, Managing Partner Quirk Agency Johannesburg

I had the delight in attending the talks held by Quirk at Wits, during the global Social Media Week  2014.

The first presentation was by Justin Spratt, who provided a broad perspective to Africa & the growing importance of mobile & the potential for social media.

Africa is vast, and has just over 1,11 Billion population (2013),

Image from The Economist & Wired.com

and although globally it is broadly viewed as one market, it is clearly not a single market, especially with its diversity in languages, cultural context, social groups, and vast geographic locations etc

At best it is viewed broadly as 5 markets by multi-internationals, that usually being West Africa, North Africa, Central Africa, East Africa & Southern Africa.

There is a current hypothesis, that “the dispersion appears to be correlated to languages and the social groups that spins off, for example, in Nigeria the language density is up to 25 different languages per 100 sq. kms” Justin Pratt, Quirk

Africa is in an era of an “advanced technology paradox” aka, a community will have access to a drone that is dropping off cargo like medical supplies, however the community might not even have access to clean water, electricity, or ability to keep girls in schools.

Even the telecoms have underestimated Africa, e.g. Safaricom, it’s business plan for Kenya in 2003 was to have 500k mobile subscribers, by 2013 it had 21 million users!

It is projected that there will be around 346MM unique subscribers to mobile by 2017 in Africa.  Currently mobile phone penetration is

• 65,7% South Africa
• 34,5% Angola
• 43,8% Ghana
• 47,6% Senegal etc

It is said, that ‘data’ is understated by the telecom industry, since it’s not incentivised nor in their best interests to inform us on how much data is actually being used, but what is fact, is that although feature phones are the  main mobile, smartphones are growing.  Huawei is currently building Android phones for $25 e.g. projected there will be 18,9mm smartphones in Kenya by 2017 (source: Informa telecoms & media).  Data costs are getting cheaper, with the greater investment in ventures like the Seacom cable.

Opportunity is growing for marketers to use mobile & social media in Africa.

In summary,

• Africa is vast & can be split into many smaller markets
• Mobile penetration is high & growing
• Data usage & smart phone penetration is increasing, with data costs decreasing & the technology getting cheaper
• Africa leapfrogs technology (aka jumping from no communication to mobile, leaving behind landlines)
• Increasingly great opportunity for marketers to use mobile within their marketing campaigns, to connect with their target consumers