Mobile phones as media platforms in developing world

The Internews report, The Promise of Ubiquity, written by John West provides interesting information on how mobile phones are growing in the developing countries. The report points out that mobile phone ownership is soon catching up with TV ownership in the developing countries and mobile users outnumber the Internet users. Therefore, it is important for traditional media to consider mobiles as a viable media platform to reach out to a large number of mobile subscribers, otherwise some other players may move in.

The governments in the developing countries have bought the argument that mobile phones can be used for social and economic development and pushing to expand markets in the poor areas. Therefore, the mobile phone manufacturers are now focussed on developing ULCH (ultra low cost handsets) which may cost less than $20. The mobile service providers are providing services at a very low ARPU (average revenue per user). For e.g. the ARPU in India is $6 and probably lower. However, to overcome the costs the industry is pushing the development of VAS (value added services). Due to this the traditional model of measuring revenue in terms of ARPU is shifting to AMPU (Average Margin Per User).

Text-based services are continuing to grow which may be utilized by news organizations to provide news services to mobile subscribers. The Jasmine News Service in Sri Lanka is a good exammple of how this is happening. However, before launching a text-based news service an organization may need to take several factors into account such as cost, literacy, the kind of service they want to lauch etc.

The report also notes that mobile web is going to grow and will soon be available in most parts of developing world.

Overall the report provides a good analysis of what is happening in the developing world in the mobile industry and argues why it may be important for traditional media to move in the space.

Katrin Verclas, the founder of mobileactive.org reviews the report in detail and notes out some important points that John West misses in his assessment of mobile media in the developing world.