Extending the Experience to Sub-Saharan Africa

The two previous chapters have been concerned with various aspects of a revolutionary new technology, that lies somewhere between a basic mobile phone and a relatively expensive smartphone. Before the advent of the new smart feature phone in India, users were required to buy smartphones in order to access the Internet. Now they are able to do so at a much lower cost. This chapter, however, deals with a different issue, namely, of whether and to what extent, the Indian experience can be replicated in other developing regions and Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. On the basis mainly of available data, I argue that the biggest obstacle to replication lies in affordability: in the price of handsets, data and incomes, Sub-Saharan Africa is at a disadvantage and with respect to device costs, a severe disadvantage. Other dimensions of replicability, however, were less clear-cut, partly because of a paucity of data. What is clear, though, is that associations between KaiOS Technologies and MTN and Orange have resulted in a strong African demand for mobile money through smart feature phones.