The latest issue of Business Week contains an informative report on cellphones in Africa (mainly East Africa). ‘By yearend, Africa will have 261 million cellular subscriptions, more than 10 times the number in 2001. The penetration rate is approaching 28%, according to market watcher Informa Telecoms & Media in London.’
According to Business Week Reporter Jack Ewing ‘… the explanation for the growth, put forward by executives at Nokia, Ericsson, and other companies in the wireless industry, is that poor people are willing to spend their scarce cash on mobile communications because the return on investment is huge. Their lives improve dramatically when they can call a potential employer rather than going in person, summon medical help, or find out which local market is offering the best price for pineapple. Yet there is meager independent research to support this assertion. So I figured there was just one way to find out: Go talk to people in emerging markets myself.’
Apart from some hyperbole upfront ([''Cellphones'] arrival has changed life … as any development in the past century’), quoting the wisdoms of Jeffrey Sacks (a standard in Western journalism’s stories about economic issues on the continent),underestimating some of the negative effects of mobile technology on economic and social relations and consumption patterns (critics are dismissed as the ‘minority view’) and equating having cellphones with political freedom, the piece is actually very good. I really liked it. Good reporting.

* The image is from a slideshow that accompanied the story. It is credited to journalist Ewing.