Basic FEATURE PHONE - WAP MMS Nokia dominates Africa

Why You Must Never Forget

About the Humble Feature Phone in Africa

What is a Feature Phone category ?

I would like to classify a feature phone as a device that supports WAP (GPRS/Edge) connectivity, has a colour screen, can send an MMS message, has low-resolution camera and lastly supports J2ME native applications.

The feature phone segment dominates mobile connected devices globally. There are numerous reasons for this,

• • 10 years of device sales

  • An established and installed base of users

  • Cost of ownership and affordability

What does this mean for Africa? no power for hungry Smartphones

There is a huge installed base of feature phone devices across Africa which is made up largely of Nokia devices. There are many reasons for this market share including but not limited to the quality of the devices and superior battery life (an important consideration due to intermittent power supplies across Africa)

Feature phones in Africa

Nokia is the dominant OEM (original equipment manufacturer) of mobile handsets in Africa. One estimate has positioned Nokia with a 65% market share across all Africa. The vast majority of the devices supplied by Nokia can be classified in my view into the following:

• • Basic 2G handsets like the Nokia 1110. These devices are the bottom of the pyramid devices which allow for phone calls and SMS messaging

  • Low-end feature phones (2.5G WAP) devices like the Nokia 5130 XpressMusic

  • High-end smartphones devices (3G and up) like the N and E series Nokia phones

To see an indication of Nokia’s market share in the connected device market, two mobile platforms, namely InMobi and Opera Mini, provide great insights into Nokia usage across Africa.

InMobi is a mobile advertising platform serving mobile WAP banners across Africa. In Q3-2011 InMobi served over 15 Billion WAP banners to connected devices across the continent. This is a snap shot from InMobi Research, please take note of the Nokia information provided in the snapshot. 61.1% of available impressions where made from Nokia Devices on the InMobi Network

Opera Mini is a third party mobile browser that has over 144 million monthly users globally. In June 2011 Opera Mini released their State of the Mobile Web and data for 10 African countries was provided - Opera looked at the top 100 handsets used in each of the top 10 African countries, of the 100 total handsets listed:

• • Nokia: 89

  • Samsung: 7

  • Sony Ericsson: 1

  • Alcatel: 1

  • Apple: 1

  • LG: 1

J2ME (Java)

I would like to point out that mobile applications that have J2ME (Java) versions will still have the biggest potential audience reach in Africa. Any developer will tell you that developing for java is a nightmare and rightfully so BUT if you would like to see attract the biggest possible audience in Africa, that is the starting point for any developer.

source: afrinnovator.com

Related:

Doing Tech Business in Africa: A Few Lessons from Twitter’s Rise in Africa

afrinnovator.com