1. Social Media & Browser
Wars
Russell Southwood
Balancing Act
www.balancingact-africa.com
@balancingactafr

2. The medium is the message -
mobile as media
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
Ghana
Luanda
10-15% use to get news and
info
in last week.
Ghana Internet use:
Watch/download videos
(15%);
Play games (14%); Visit
Networking sites (15%)
Ghana mobile use: 44% did
not
Use SMS (illiteracy) Chad
(26%
Literacy)
Sources: Various
Weekly Media Reach
What is the nature of the mobile as medium?

3. Tablets
(<1%)
$136-495
Smartphones
(<1%-20%)
>$100-400
Featurephones (10-
20%) US$60-100
Basic phones (60-89%) $40-50
Now

4. Tablet (1-
3%)
$100-300
Smartphones
(3-20%) $70-
300
Featurephones (20-
30%) 460-80
Basic phones (47-76%)
$40-50
3-5
years
time
Exc South Africa:
80% prediction

5. The Update: October 2013
 Rwanda: c3% smartphones. Tablets below 20,000 Featurephones: 20-
30% Basic the rest.
 Kenya – Smartphones are now 8% of the market Future estimates:
Smartphones: 15-20%; Feature: 40-50% Basic: 35-40%
 No accurate figures on tablets: 200,000-400,000
 The blurring line between smart and feature phones in both price and
features
 Safaricom to stop selling high-end feature phones
 Pricing in Kenya? Intel Yolo: US$125; Tecno N3: US$92; Huawei Ideos:
US$80-100; Nokia Lumia 520: US$193 Next step down: US$60-70??
Blackberry? iOS?
 ZTE smartphone in Liberia: US$89
 Reality check: Liberia has 6-8,000 data subscribers

6. Country Aug-10 Apr-11 Oct-11
Dec-11 May-12 Jun-12 Oct-12
South Africa 3.1 million 3.8 million 4.4 million 4.8 million 4.7 million 4.96 million 6.5 million
Nigeria 1.7 million 2.9 million 3.8 million 4.3 million 4.6 million 5.86 million 6.7 million
Kenya 864,760 1.03 million 1.3 million
1.29 million 1.39 million 1.4 million 1.97 million
Ghana 621,000 906,540 1 million
1.14 million 1.24 million 1.28 million 1.67 million
Senegal 299,340 447,840 578 880
620,260 660,080 665,880 678,420
Uganda 196,000 280,600 330,780
346,980 206,100 414,260 532,920
Tanzania 141,580 259,120 352,000
414,540 497,940 518,460 676,420
Botswana 86,060 112,180 138,140
167,180 218,100 223,660 286,740
Angola 63,860 112,180 277,640
322,300 421,960 433,520 597,460
Zambia 56,640 117,520 157,760
177,820 228,940 235,700 320,280
Malawi 46,660 79,040 95,820
112,100 134,700 139,540 209,300
Namibia 15,100 127,260 123,820
134,149 84,100 172,400 231,720
Sierra Leone 8,780 34,100 44,760
48,520 57,080 58,040 73,680
)

7. Other social media
 Rwanda Facebook: c200,000 Top 5 brands: MTN Rwanda:
13,313; Rwanda (11,723); Rwanda Clothing (5,020); Equity
Bank (2,906) Airtel RW (2,833)
 Mxit – 10 million plus in South Africa but relatively small
elsewhere in Africa. Link to low-end Blackberry IMS
 Twitter user numbers hard to come by: South Africa, 1 m+;
Kenya 150,000+
 Portland Comms: South Africa (5 million tweets); Kenya (2.47 m
tweets); Nigeria (1.65 m tweets). All tend to be “fast adopters”
 57% use from mobile but 81% talk to friends
 Differences between Twitter and Facebook

8. Pattern of development elsewhere
 Satellite->fibre->cheaper wholesale prices->cheaper retail
prices->uptick in user numbers
 Study for NGO: Following countries: South Africa; UK, Brazil,
Thailand and India
 Huge increase in leading international social media followed
by international variants and localised versions
 Orkut.br (Brazil); hi5.com. Kapook.com (Thailand);
Orkut.co.in, Twitter look-alike (India).
 Use starts largely as “boy-stuff” but gender balance evens as
numbers increase

9. Africa’s alternative social media
challengers
 Latvian social networking site: From nothing to 5 million (Feb
2012) users in Africa. 2.5 million in Nigeria; 250,000 in Ghana;
35,000 in Kenya; 30,000+ in Namibia
 Aimed largely at basic phone users. Promoted using Fremium
model and virtual currency. 90% Opera Mini users (=Nokia)
 Yookos. Nigerian based in South Africa. Claims 6m users and is
targeting 20 m
 Use of socio-demographics and advertisers
 Mxit – Yet to break out of South Africa
 Misc topic based communities: Guinness VIP, football site
(1,000,000), majority in

10. New browser approaches
 biNu and Umuntu Media’s Mimiboard – very different ways of
getting to the same place

11. Overview
www.binu.com
Your Smartphone in the Cloud
Launched Jan 2011
3.1m Monthly Active Users

14. The Law of circles
Total users
Total users with right
phone or OS
Total users of service or app
Databases and socio-demographics

15. Complex handset and browser
landscape
 Feature phones will be a bigger part of the market (3,000+
different types)
 Unclear which brands will dominate (Tecno)
 The developers dilemma – do you develop for now or the
future
 Smartphone brands: Nokia? Android? iOS? Blackberry?
 SMS and basic phones – Big market but SMS limiting. Right
for non middle class audiences (eg iCows)
 Rise of local & independent browsers (2go, Mxit)
 Need for cross-platform browsers (eg biNu, Facebook)

17. The Wall – The deal and control of
payment channel
 SMS – Obi Asika on music revenues and the split with mobile
operators in Nigeria
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1lcJGRSTG8&feature=pl
cp
 Walled garden vs Over-The-Top (80/20 vs 30/70)
 Pressure is slowing building for the current deal framework to
change – Mobile Internet is small but takes more affluent
customers out of the walled garden
 Payment platforms and operator control – This too will break
down

19. The need for critical mass
 Need for critical mass (250,000-500,000 plus)
 Platform neutral/agnostic – Hard choice between fitting on 3-
5 platforms using apps or getting a space on a pre-existing
platform with existing numbers (biNu; Nokia Life; Nokia Life+)
 How to get critical mass? Developers usual response: Word
of Mouth? Social media? App store presence? Slow to build,
very few break through. No cost of marketing put in.
 Free vs cost to buy. The Fremium compromise. Free builds
the numbers
 Numbers alone do not guarantee survival: Pesatalk; former
Kenyan social media platform (300,000)

20. Potential business models
 Advertiser or sponsor pays
 Internet currently around
than 5% of tracked ad
spend but does not inc
SMS campaigns
 Tipping point soon – case
of African newspapers
 Either existing media
operators, people
partnering with them or new
independents
 User pays
 Circles – Need to get
critical mass so free and
low cost or
 B2B – Higher price for
niche services (eg cash
collection/sales
management)
 Subscription – All you can
use
Either way, need for critical mass (0.25 m plus), platform neutral

21. What do Africa’s key users want?
 Africa’s tech savvy generation grows up (18-35). Imagine them
3-5 years older
 Stuff supplied by OTT companies: Facebook, Skype, Amazon,
Google, Twitter and Apple.
 Local or challenger variants: Mxit, 2go, biNu and Eskimi.
 Video (music, film, sport), examples iROKO, Buni TV, etc; video
calling; network gaming; Newer example: Waabeh (15,000
streams without marketing)
What do Africa’s users need?
 Wide range of development-related needs: health, education;
agriculture; and small-scale businesses.
 Complex ecosystems and difficult cultural shifts
 A funded pilot and an award winning app may not go anywhere
but….it may be a winner.

22. See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUxmsdTOFGI
Example 1: People deliver service – critical mass

23. Example 1: People deliver service
– the importance of critical mass
 Uganda: 80% of population in agriculture. 70,000 registered
households. 5-6 per household = 0.25 m people. Aim: 1 m
 Community Knowledge Workers – The sales force. Business
in a box. They buy their smartphone. 800 in 20 districts.
Financial incentives to “touch” farmers, recruit new farmers
and do surveys
 Call centre – Agronimists who can answer 80% of queries.
Remainder logged and replied to.
 Currently donor paid but could be Government or private
company
 Changing how Government works
 Could take on other tasks or be for something completely
different (eg health)

24. Example 2: Edutainment – Feature phones
See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DArz6MBTqME

25. Example 2: Edutainment –
Featurephones and social
platforms
 Lack of a reading culture: Adaobi Tricia Nwabani (I do not
come to you by chance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDIZf6h7oQc
 Partnership between World Reader (also work with Kindles in
schools) and social network platform for feature phones, biNu
 biNu has 4.2 m users globally, 1 m in Africa
 Currently there are 0.5 m readers, 42% of whom are in
Nigeria, 10% Zimbabwe, 5% Ethiopia and Ghana. 90% 16-35
 1000 books available. Everything from Caine prize winners to
romances. English, Twi, Kiswahili & Kinyarwanda.
 Potential for fremium model?

26. Other examples
 Things just beginning to
happen
 Things not yet invented
 Online food delivery
(Turkey’s Yemeksepeti)
 Mobile newspaper
 Edutainment channel
(Mediae – The Knowledge
Zone)
 The School Workbook
 Live stream video (the
lecture, the performance)
 Augmented reality (tackling
issues of screen size
differently)
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=lguOHIka7tk
G
a
m

27. LTE as the driver of change
 It will be the accelerator of data use. Already 5+ LTE
implementations but at least a dozen by end 2013. One does
it, everybody has to do it. 2-4 year change cycle.
 3G or 3G+ only looked good because all other offers were so
bad. On-going problems with network congestion
 Smile Communications in Uganda: Actual speed of 6 mbps
 Early indications of likely uses: Consumer video, video
conferencing (Skype), high-end graphic and video transfers
 Africa will play its part in solving the handset problem by
generating demand

28. What Other People Watch African Film Emerging social media
Emerging Online Digtal Advertising Emerging Technology

29. Balancing Act
 Consultancy and research
 Reports: Analogue to digital migration in Africa-Strategic
choices and current developments (Out soon)
 African Data Centre Markets (November 2013)
 3nd edition of African Broadcast and Film Markets (Before end
of 2013)