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January 4, 2010
Vodacom, the largest mobile operator in South Africa, recently announced that despite the popularity of social networking service MXit, its own service, The Grid, has attracted 1m users. Introduced in South Africa in May 2009, The Grid has as its main differentiator location awareness, but Vodacom has also added a range of security and healthcare services, including one for finding the nearest police station and HIV support center.
The low adoption of PCs and Internet access across much of Africa has so far resulted in low adoption of Internet services such as social networking: a small addressable market is not attractive for companies such as Facebook or MySpace. This does not mean, however, that there is a lack of demand, as demonstrated by the success of independent communications technology company MXit, whose mobile social networking application is accessed by over 9m users in South Africa alone.
Percentage of mobile subscribers accessing social networks in South Africa, 2007-2010
 Source: Pyramid Research Mobile Data Forecasts, Q4 2009
Vodacom has also launched The Grid in Tanzania, which we believe demonstrates a substantial opportunity for mobile operators in the region. In lower-income countries social networking adoption is still very limited, but shows much potential, particularly as 2.5G+ handset penetration is reaching critical mass: about two out of three handsets across the Africa & Middle East region at year-end 2009 were 2.5G capable. Also, data access is becoming more affordable. The lack of content and applications (see our recent Insider Mobile Internet Adoption: Content is the Catalyst) is now the major barrier to adoption of mobile data services. This provides an opportunity for operators to move into the applications space, where appropriate, and ensure that they extend their relevance beyond data access. So far, MTN, the largest mobile operator in the region, has launched a social networking application in South Africa called noknok, although adoption numbers are not available. It will be interesting to see if it also will launch in other countries to seize the opportunity before the global social networking giants do.
— Jan ten Sythoff, Analyst at large
Related resources:
Mobile Internet Adoption: Content is the Catalyst
Telecom Insider published December 2009
Mobile online services remain an attractive but elusive opportunity in much of Africa and the Middle East. The low usage of traditional, PC-based Internet services leaves a void that will be largely filled by mobile handsets, and social networking will be a key application. Case studies cover Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.
Mobile Gaming in Emerging Markets: Five-Year Forecast and Impact Analysis
Research Report published July 2009
Mobile gaming is enjoying solid growth, from about 55m gamers in 2005 to about 183m in 2008. Besides technological improvement and business-level innovation — the iPhone App Store is revolutionizing the industry — mobile adoption also spurs growth. Emerging markets contribute heavily. This report analyzes mobile videogaming markets in emerging economies, examining mobile gaming-specific metrics, market enablers, adoption barriers, trends and opportunities. It forecasts market growth and looks at interesting business models and initiatives. Included are in-depth country profiles of eight emerging markets: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Russia and South Africa.
Mobile Data Forecasts
Forecasts published quarterly
Our Mobile Data Forecast products provide complete pictures of demand trends for more than 80 countries worldwide. The Excel output includes five years of historical data and five years of market projections for metrics such as penetration, mobile subscriptions (by type of package, by operator or MVNO and by network technology), users of specific data services (SMS, music, etc.), MOU, ARPS (by operator, by subscription type, by service, by application) and revenue (by messaging and non-messaging applications). The Forecasts are based on extensive field research and use a consistent methodology, aiming to capture the total spending on mobile data services in each market.
Mobile Video Services: A Five-Year Global Market Forecast
Research Report published May 2009
Pyramid Research estimates that the global number of users paying for mobile video services directly delivered to their handsets will grow five-fold between 2008 and 2014 to surpass 534m at the end of the period. In this report, we analyze the adoption and revenue opportunities for mobile video services, which include paid video clips, music videos, TV episodes, TV programming and movies. We examine operators’ strategies through seven country case studies: Brazil, Chile, China, India, Italy, Japan and the US.
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