Versatile Amphibian

I've completed my analysis of the trends in African telecoms for the first half of the year and thereby amended my forecast for the remainder of 2012. Overall, investment was up 54% over the same period last year, however it remains 33% down on H1 2010. As the table shows, much of this decline is due to the destabilising effects of the Arab Spring, which has almost completely halted investment in North Africa. In 2010 and 2009 countries in this region accounted for a third of all investment in the continent. In 2011 they represented 3% of the total and are on track to be the same this year. Overall only Central African countries are likely to show an uptick in investment from 2010, driven by the nascent emergence of the continent's third most populous country - the DRC - and coincident investment by telecoms groups who are keen to find a non-Nigerian market to focus on. The market I'm most worried about is Kenya, so long a leader in digital Africa, but now, t...

Although Nigeria and South Africa received by far the largest share of the $10.2Bn of investments in African telecoms infrastructure announced in 2011, the biggest winners were citizens of Zimbabwe. In absolute terms, Nigeria ($3.3Bn) and South Africa ($1.8Bn), represent 50% of the total investment, but at $54 per person, Zimbabweans benefited from more than twice as much investment per person as Nigerians ($21) or South Africans ($37.50) and received more than double the continental average ($24). Much of the new $700Mn going into Zimbabwean telecoms was spent on mobile data services, either direct to modem or to 3G handsets, taking advantage of new sub-sea bandwidth - such as that provided by SEACOM - to provide Internet connectivity to consumers. Zimbabwe, it must also be remembered, has been a significant beneficiary of Chinese investment dollars for all manner of infrastructure projects. Worst off of the large nations were citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo ($2.75), whic...

Besides a slight naming problem , there were few surprises in the launch of the Lumia 800 at Nokia World today. I was a bit unimpressed by the stage show, which felt very forced, but the hardware looks good and, according to early benchmarks it offers very respectible performance. A few thoughts from me: I think Nokia should have been more aggressive in its pricing. I'm firmly of the belief that the mass market smartphone customer makes a simple choice. If they can afford an iPhone, then they buy one - its a trusted choice in a rather confusing world, not to mention its status symbol er... status. Those who can't afford iPhone then choose a monthly payment they can afford and go from there. By pricing the 800 at the same point as iPhone, I think NOK are in for an uphill battle. Rebuilding their brand requires shifting a lot of units and becoming the "next best option" after iPhone; not going head to head with Apple just yet. If it was me, I'd have accepted much l...