I am often asked where the next growth market to realise its potential for mobile is going to be. It does not take a great deal of thought because the answer is always and increasingly – Africa! I am also particularly pleased to be asked this question because this week Mobestar embarks on its own African adventure emanating from Nairobi, Kenya. This country has the most intensive mobile internet users in Africa, with each user browsing an average of 525 pages each month, according to a new report by Opera. Here, the number of unique users grew by 246.2 per cent in the year to November 2009 while page-views grew by 615 per cent in a similar period. Applications are starting to proliferate like the cash transfer system provided by the market leaders, M-PESA, which is now less than three years old but has 7 million customers and is reputed to process as much as 10% of Kenya’s GDP. Kenya is launching a branded version of our own mDate mobile dating platform which, we trust, will produce a similar uptake. In fact all over Africa the story is the same, massive mobile utilisation and exponential growth.

Apparently the mobile phone is now turning into Africa’s panacea to its communication problems. While access to a fixed landline has remained static for a decade, access to a mobile phone in Africa has increased five fold in as many years. In the poorest continent in the world nearly one in three people can make or receive a phone call and mobile penetration equates to the levels of Western Europe. With a rickety continental infrastructure not helped by unusable internet, cratered roads, dysfunctional banks, unaffordable teachers, and an unfulfilled demand for an elementary medical system – there are a number of burgeoning applications designed to bridge one or more of these gaps. They are beginning to transform the lives of millions of Africans often in a way that, rather than relying on international aid, promotes small-scale entrepreneurship. Mobile phones now enable checking market prices of crops, transferring money or just making a call and they are transforming Africa.

But could this new technology end up bypassing the poorest? Happily this appears not to be the case because practices like phone sharing, and the facility for phone charging, have been an engine of this small-business revolution. Particularly in rural areas, a small investment in a phone can first create a business opportunity, then maximise its reach by overcoming the possible limitations of real or technological illiteracy – because the phone operator can make sure the call gets through, and can cut off the call at exactly the right moment to avoid wasting any part of a unit – what a difference this will make. The mere fact of being able to speak to someone too far away to meet with is a transforming experience. For example fishermen deciding which market are best for their catch, or what the market wants them to fish for, a phone call can make the difference between a good return on the right catch or having to throw away the profit, and the fish, from a wrong catch. For smallholders trying to decide when or where to sell, a single phone call can be an equally profitable experience.

It would seem that mobile adoption is now gathering considerable pace on the African continent with a vibrancy and colour that could not be replicated anywhere else.