MOBILE World Congress (MWC), the biggest wireless trade show of the year, will see all the world’s major gadget manufacturers heading to Barcelona, Spain for the February 25 - 29, 2013 event. No occasion is more important for the announcement of new devices and company strategies and efforts to outshine the competition. The 2013 MWC also marks a move to a larger and glitzier new venue at the Fira Barcelona Gran Via. One of the superstars of Mobile World Congress 2012 was Nokia, which redis-covered its energy, shoved aside the usual 8-megapixel camera phone technology that consumers have become accustomed to, and presented attendees with a never-before-seen 41-megapixel mobile – the 808 PureView. Who is going to pull new tricks out of their hats at MWC 2013? The frenzy is palpable. Still talking mobiles, our feature titled “Which Phone Should you Buy?” comes to the rescue of users who need help deciding how to choose a phone that best meets their needs. We also have a scoop on the most anticipated smartphones for launch in 2013 – phones that have taken away limits and pushed them into the stratosphere. And while Steve Evans (CEO of Etisalat, Nigeria) recently predicted a 40 percent compound annual growth for African mobile broadband by 2015, our article ‘Telecoms Boom Leaves Rural Africa Behind” suggests rural Africa might just be left out of any meaningful growth in connectivity.

Last but not least: our interview of the month with Raj Hajela, Founder & CEO of Estel Technologies India, brings to light the workings of a little-known (at least, in these parts) but efficient ‘technology

EDITOR’S NOTE

WHILE mobile phone usage has exploded across Africa over the last decade, transforming daily life and commerce for millions, it’s a revolution that has left behind perhaps two thirds of its people. Poor or no reception outside the towns helps explain why the continent’s mobile penetration, in terms of the percentage of the population using the service, is far lower than previously thought, and the cost of providing that service to impoverished, sparsely populated areas remains prohibitive. In rural Sierra Leone, a country where GDP per capita is less than $400 a year, money doesn’t grow on trees, but mobile reception can, says street trader Abass Bangura in Freetown, the West African country’s capital. In parts of Tonkolili, a district in the center of the country, or Kailahun to the east, it’s the only way you can get reception, he said. “You climb stick, like mango tree, before you have network,” he said. In South Sudan, the world’s newest state, it’s a similar story. Less than a year old, the country already has five mobile

Telecoms Boom Leaves Rural Africa Behindoperators, and its capital, Juba, is teeming with giant billboards advertising mobile phones, but go just a few kilometers beyond a handful of fast-growing towns, and cell phones become useless. Multiple SIM cards help users navigate patchy network coverage and take advantage of price promotions from rival operators. That is typical of much of the continent. With a population of just over a billion people, Africa has over 700 million SIM cards, but with most users owning at least two cards, penetration is only about 33 percent, according to a study released in November by industry research firm Wireless Intelligence. “If we look at the fact that the rural population of Africa is about 60-70 percent of the population, and if we look at the degree of penetration into the rural market, it’s very, very low,” said Spiwe Chireka of advisory firm IDC. In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there are more than enough SIM cards for everyone, but penetration

is only 61 percent, according to a 2012 study by research firm Informa. The average mobile phone user in Nigeria owns an average of 2.39 SIM cards. Globally, only Indonesia is higher, with an average of 2.62 SIM cards per user. Even in Africa’s biggest economy, South Africa, SIM numbers comfortably exceed the population, but given the number of people using multiple devices, actual population penetration is closer to 80 percent, says market leader Vodacom. “You’ve got a lot of people buying SIMs, but maybe not enough phones to put it in,” said Olayemi Jinadu, an executive with the Sierra Leone arm of Indian telco Bharti Airtel.

COST VERSUS BENEFITThe unserved rural millions couldrepresent another growth opportunity for Africa-focused telcos like South Africa’s MTN Group, Bharti Airtel and Kuwait’s Zain, but first they have to figure out a cost-effective way to push into sub-Saharan Africa’s remote corners.

enabler’ whose multi-operator e-Recharge platform recently went live in Nigeria. This comes at an interesting time when it is reported that Nigerians transacted deals worth N228m via mobile money in 2012.

Raj HajelaFounder & CEO of EstelTechnologies, India

Steve EvansCEO of Etisalat, Nigeria

The Nokia PureView 808 was a sensation at MWC 2012

2

February 2013

Cont. on Page 4 >>

3

February 2013

INTERVIEW

Estel Technologies is a leading and specialistmobile financial services technology enabler…

Founded in 1997 and based in India, Estel Technologies provides turnkey software solutions and outsourced services to telecom operators, banks, utilities and their service providers.In this e-Interview with Anne Agbakoba, the company’s Founder & CEO, Raj Hajela, takes us through his company’s breadth of experience across continents - and how telcos and consumers in Nigeria are about to benefit from Estel’s platform, which supports a diverse range of recharge options. Excerpts:What are the specialties of Estel Technologies ?Estel Technologies is a leading and specialist mobile financial services technology enabler with a significant presence with Telecom Operators, Banks, Financial Institutions and Service Providers across the globe, with special focus on Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America. We currently serve 24 large deployments in 19 countries globally and are growing rapidly owing to our innovations and high performance world class software platforms. Our main products (software platforms) include e-Recharge (anytime, anywhere, any value, any service prepaid

recharge); mobile remittances (money transfer and remittance service viamobiles); mobile money (branchless banking for the un-banked); mobile banking (access to bank accounts, and transacting using mobiles); and voucher management (voucher, e-pin and supply chain management).

Tell us about your role in helping Rechargeitnow.com win two Deloitte Technology awards - the Fast 500 APAC, and the Fast 50 India awards.Rechargeitnow.com uses Estel technology to power its business operations. In fact, the entire business of rechargeitnow.com is built on Estel technology. Our platform processes prepaid e-recharges for their customers, providing instant balance credit of their mobile & DTH TV accounts with their respective telecom operators.

What has been your work experience in African countries, and what is the business case for launching in Nigeria?We have extensive experience of implementing projects in Africa. We have implemented projects for mobile operators, banks and service providers in Uganda, Malawi, Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana,

Sudan, Burundi, and Ethiopia. This has given us a very good understanding of

the African region, the customer requirements, and local issues,

especially around infrastruc-ture. We operate a regional support centre in Uganda to offer local support to our customers in Africa in the same time zone. This centre is backed up by our global 24x7 support centre in India.Being one of the largest

countries and markets in Africa, Nigeria is obviously attractive! We expect two of our early Nigerian customers to go live this

month, and expect to get many more in the banking

and Payment Service Pro-viders segments in the

coming years.

How will Nigeria (businesses and consumers) benefit for your experiences in the markets you operate in (Africa, Asia, Middle East, Latin America)Users in Nigeria will benefit from our world class, feature rich, scalable and robust technologies for mobile money, mobile payments and prepaid e-Recharge. As our customers roll out their services in Nigeria using our technology, we expect them to offer state-of-the-art mobile money and prepaid recharge services - backed by our technology and their own internal business processes - to achieve a leadership position within the country and region.

What kind of competition are you prepared for in Nigeria, and what is your advantage?Competition is a way of life. We have successfully tackled competition in many countries where we operate. We are hopeful and confident that our superior products and support services will win us a significant share of the market here.

‘Estel Technologies Innovates with IBM’ - what is this headline about?Our partnership began with IBM many years ago, wherein we use some of their technology such as databases and web servers within our products to offer high security, scalability and reliable solutions. Also, IBM successfully resells our solutions in specific geographies to customers as a Systems Integrator.

In terms of tourism and relaxation, what is your favourite location in Africa, and why?My personal favourite is East Africa for safaris, and South Africa for a taste of ‘modern Africa’. However, I must say that in all my travels all over Africa, I have been highly impressed by the virgin beauty of most countries, especiallyZimbabwe and Malawi!

www. esteltelecom.com

As our customers roll out their services in Nigeria using our technology, we expect them to offer state-of-the-art mobile money and prepaid recharge services - backed by our technology and their own internal business processes - to achieve a leadership position within the country and region.

February 2013

Bharti has earmarked $1.5 billion for capex this year, while fourth-placed France Telecom is spending $9.3 billion between 2010 and 2015. Spare cash is increasingly rare for debt-strapped European telecoms opera-tors, which are cutting their dividends to cope with falling revenues and network upgrade costs in their home markets. Some African regulators have set up funds to promote coverage, to which operators are expected to contribute. In Sierra Leone, the Universal Access Development Fund (UADF) is yet to subsidize the cost of putting up a single mast, though it has been active for several years. The regulator complains networks do not contribute the fees they should. “If we can’t subsidize, they’ll never erect towers there,” said Bashir Kamara, Project Manager at UADF. ($1 = 0.6350 British pounds = 160 Nigerian Naira).

>> Cont. from Page 2

4

Which Mobile is Best?Source: Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Simon Akam | reuters.com [Jan 31, 2013]

“There’s great potential, but the big concern for us is operational costs,” said Andre Claasson, chief operating officer at Zain South Sudan. In rural Africa, the cost of running a network tower often exceeds the revenue it reaps. Fuel is typically about 40 percent of a tower’s operating cost, and in remote areas companies burn more diesel by bringing fuel to towers than is used powering them. Although roughly 73 percent of Africa’s land has cell phone coverage, according to market research firm IDC, that still leaves vast tracts of rural Africa without network access. Africa has 170,000 mobile towers now and needs another 60,000, according to tower company IHS Group, which at an average $200,000 each means an outlay of $12 billion. “If you are an operator asked to spend $200,000 to build a site and another $2,000 a month to run it in an area with 500 people herding cows, it doesn’t make sense,” said Issam Darwish, IHS’s chief executive. Average revenue per user is also low. It can vary between $1 and $10 per month, much lower than in developed markets such as the United States, which delivered ARPU of $51 in 2012 or Britain, $27. Bharti, sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest telecom group, says it makes $6.40 per user in Africa, which is higher than its home Indian market, where it makes only $3.30 a month, but the cost of operating in Africa is much higher and there isn’t a comparable middle class ready and able to spend more. “You either have a handful of people in the affluent part of the society or you have lots of people who can’t afford the services,” its

When it comes to choosing your phone, pick the top two or three features you can’t live without, and focus on finding a handset that offers them. If you love to take photos and surf the Web on your handset, look for a phone that has a good lens and a top browser. Or, if poor battery life is a bugbear, consider a phone with a smaller screen and a slower processor to keep the power drainage in check. Don’t be swept up in the hype. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to features

Chairman Sunil Mittal said last year. Operators can save money by sharing towers, but even then, some sites will never make sense without government subsidies, analysts say. African expansion has not been cheap for telcos. Over the past five years, mobile operators have spent a combined $16.5 billion on capital expenditure in the key markets of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal and Ghana, according to Wireless Intelligence.

African expansion has not been cheap for telcos. Over the past five years, mobile operators have spent a com-bined $16.5 billion on capital expenditure in the key markets of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal and Ghana…

Here is a quick run-down of the main operating systems on the market:

iOSiOS is the software that Apple uses on the iPhone, as well as the iPad and iPod touch. When it was introduced on the original iPhone, iOS was revolutionary, as

it was designed from the ground up to be driven via finger presses, rather than the styluses that were commonly used to navigate around previous smart phones. What really sets iOS apart from the crowd is the intuitive design of its user interface. Most people can simply pick up an iPhone and start using it, without having to refer to a manual. Apple has added numerous features to iOS over the years, including multitasking support -- so you can run more than one application at a time -- and cut and paste features for text editing. The iPhone’s App Store has also been a huge success, offering thousands of applications to download, ranging from games to recipe

Mobile phones have become a very important part of communications System in 2013, making it almost impossible to live without one. They have become smarter and faster – yet the sheer variety out there can become very confusing for anyone looking to buy a new phone.

Focus on your top features you will never use. Focus on ease of use, speed and a good app store, which will make your phone more flexible, so it can become exactly what you need.

Choose your Operating System

Cont. on Page 5 >>

February 2013

>> Cont. from Page 4

apps. iOS is still the gold standard for mobile operating systems.

AndroidAndroid is Google’s mobile operating system. Although Google created the software, it’s offered for free to mobile phone manufacturers, and now many of the big names, including HTC, Motorola, Samsung and LG, produce smart phones that use Android. Like iOS, Android has an intuitive touchscreen interface and offers advanced features, such as multitasking and live widgets, which you can place on the home screen. The software also provides access to the Android Market, from which you can buy and download apps. While the Market isn’t yet as jam-packed as Apple’s App Store, it isn’t that far behind either.

BlackBerry OSRIM’s BlackBerry OS is only available on the company’s BlackBerry range of smart phones. One of the key features of the OS is the way it handles push email. Basically, this means that new messages are pushed out to the phone as soon as they arrive in the user’s inbox, rather than waiting for the inbox to refresh itself.Push email has made BlackBerry phones hugely popular among business users. Cheaper models, such as those in the Curve range, combined with the Mes-senger app, which allows people to send instant messages for free to other BlackBerry handsets, has made the BlackBerry line popular among youngsters. The BlackBerry OS wasn’t originally designed for touch input. Despite being upgraded to support touch in the last few years, BlackBerry devices still aren’t as intuitive as Android or iOS devices.

Windows Phone 8Microsoft has been tinkering around with smart phones since 2001, when it introduced Pocket PC. But, although Pocket PC and its later incarnation, Windows Mobile, were packed with features, they were also clunky and difficult to use. Windows Phone 7 debuted to surprisingly warm reviews in 2010, but struggled to gain much market share, despite compa-nies such as HTC, Samsung and LG producing Windows Phone devices. Fortunately for Microsoft, its latest attempt at smartphone software – Windows Phone 8 – is a job well done. It is snappy, easy to navigate and customise, and good-looking too. Hopefully this will help Microsoft jump up from its 2 percent of the global smartphone market share, compa-red with 75 percent for Android smartphones and 15 percent for the iPhone.

Top 10 Anticipated Phones 2013Quite a few Android and Windows phones are due for launch in 2013. Consult our list before you set out to buy or upgrade that smart phone.

1 Apple iPhone 6

2 Samsung Galaxy S IV OS: Android 4.2 or Android 5.0

3 Nokia Lumia 920 OS: Windows Phone 8

4 BlackBerry BB Z10 OS: BB 10

5 Sony Xperia Z / ZL OS: Android

6 Nokia Lumia 820 OS: Windows 8

7 HTC 8 OS: Windows 8

8 Samsung Galaxy Note 3 OS: Android 5.0

9 Google’s Nexus 5 OS: Android

10 Samsung ATIV S OS: Windows 8

Anne Agbakoba [Chief Research Officer]; Yetunde Quartermaine [Editorial]; Jean-luc Atelier [Admin & Artisanal Design]info@numeris-ag.com | www.numeris-ag.com | +234 803 400 7009 | +234 1 898 1061Production

Windows Phone 8