Steady Decline
This is not how the smartphone revolution was supposed to turn out. The latest handset industry reports reveal a market still characterized by exceptional smartphone growth – and deep trouble for most vendors. Globally, smartphone volumes mushroomed by more than 50% YoY in 4Q11. Feature phone sales continued a gentle decline.

1 billion units
But in 2012, volumes are still likely to be close to the billion unit mark. Most vendors fled this billion unit market 1-3 years ago, leaving it essentially to Nokia and a cluster of Asian white label firms.
Nokia gets 13% operating margin on featurephones – which could buy it much-needed time in the smartphone market.

Text as a platform
The internet allows for a paradigm that doesn’t care what device you have, whether PC or phone, as long as you have a database and a channel you’re in the game. As long as the device has some type of text or voice communication it is suddenly a read/write platform.

SMS internet
What we’re seeing in applications coming from Africa is a way to stretch the use-case of “old” messaging technology like SMS, USSD or voice into new ways of data transfer that challenge Western conceptions of what the internet is.

Handset sales in Kenya up by 200%
A new report has revealed that mobile handset sales in Kenya have risen by 200% since the Kenyan Government chose to slash the 16% Value Added Tax (VAT) levied on mobile handset sales in 2009. Although the cut was announced two years ago, the effects are only just beginning to filter their way into the market.

$2.6 billion of Kenyan GDP
The study, carried out by Deloitte on behalf of the GSMA, also revealed that Kenya’s mobile phone industry is estimated to contribute over $2.6 billion to the country’s growth domestic product (GDP) this year. This is in comparison to a figure of $1.1 billion in the previous year. The Kenyan mobile communication industry is also a huge source of employment in the country, with almost 250 000 people working in the industry.

Cut in VAT on handset sales
Since the cut in VAT on handset sales, mobile penetration in the country has increased from 50% to 70%. Such statistics bring further good news considering a 2009 report from the World Bank which concluded that within developing countries, for every 10% increase in mobile pentration, GDP will increase by 1%.

Capacity for further tax cuts
However, despite figures showing that taxation as a total cost of the ownership of a mobile phone in Kenya has fallen from 25% to 17% over the last five years, the taxation on mobile phones in Kenya still remains above the Sub-Saharan average. This is due to factors such as a 10% excise duty and VAT on airtime. Such figures reveal that there is the capacity for further tax cuts in the industry in the future which could lead to an increase in both GDP and employment in the country.

ForgetMeNot Africa joined the likes of Coca Cola, Blackberry and Apple in picking up major awards at the Meffys, the official benchmark for measuring success in the mobile industry, hosted by  TV personality Ruby Wax on Wednesday, July 7.

Meffys judges rewarded ForgetMeNot Africa for its innovation in providing services to consumers who use mobile astheir first and primary point of access to the Internet.
Judges also recognised ForgetMeNot Africa’s provision of a quality consumer experience, success in leveraging local markets and for providing a sustainable business model. Message Optimiser has enabled access to Facebook, as well as email and online chat, to more than 47 million people across east, west, central and southern Africa in the last 12 months.

MEF’s Executive Director, Rimma Perelmuter, said: “Congratulations to ForgetMeNot Africa for bridging the digital divide globally within mobile first nations around the globe by transforming feature phones into smart ones.”

Subscription numbers increasing 18%
At the end of the quarter, Africa accounted for 10 per cent of the world’s mobile subscriptions and was one of the world’s fastest-growing regions – with subscription numbers increasing 18 per cent over the year to September – as a result of the still low mobile penetration rate on the continent as well as demand for new services, such as mobile internet access, that increase the need for telecoms connectivity.

We would like to wish MTN congratulations for winning best marketing campaign for their Ayoba World Cup campaign.