Telenor: good news from India; troubles continue in Russia/CIS

Telenor HQ: India, Pakistan and Russia issues on the agenda

A recent DevelopingTelecomsWatch article went into the likelihood of mobile market consolidation in Pakistan. I was prompted to write this by a rumour doing the rounds, according to which Telenor is considering selling its operation in Pakistan to China Mobile, which already has a presence in the market in the form of the MNO Zong. I noted that Telenor's presence in Pakistan was worrying the authorities in neighbouring India - worrying them to the extent that it could make it impossible for the Scandinavian telco to increase its stake in start-up Indian cellco Unitech Wireless. Such is the level of tension between the two countries, it seems.

I moved on to speculate (wildly, I admit) that Telenor's thinking might be along the following lines:

• We can't play in India and Pakistan...
• India (population 1.15 billion, mobile penetration 34.47%) presents massively richer opportunities than Pakistan (population 173 million, mobile penetration 55.58%)...
• so, if being in Pakistan prevents us from maximising the opportunity in India, let's get out of Pakistan...
  

Last week, however, came news of a possible way for Telenor to maintain a presence in both markets. An Economic Times article of 30th July indicates that India's Home Ministry is set to give security clearance for Telenor's hiking its stake in Unitech Wireless up to 74%, but on the condition that none of the staff who have worked at the Norwegian firm's Pakistan operation, are employed in India.

The Indian authorities are not only concerned about Telenor's Pakistan connections, it seems. Security agencies apparently also had reservations regarding the Norwegian company's presence in Bangladesh, where Telenor is the largest shareholder in market-leading cellco Grameenphone. The Economic Times article notes that both the neighbouring countries not only have a history of strained ties with India, "but have also served as a launchpad for various terror attacks". In the case of Bangladesh, investigations into serial terrorist blasts that killed 80 and injured 216 in the northern Indian tourist city of Jaipur last year pointed to the involvement of Bangladesh-based terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, according to local reports.

The Economic Times piece notes that Indian authorities have had to take into account the concerns of the security agencies while also keeping in mind the reputation and stature of the Norwegian firm and how it has revolutionised rural telephony in Bangladesh via Grameenphone. The Bangladeshi MNO takes its brand name from that of Telenor's local partner Grameen Telecom, a non-profit sister concern of the internationally acclaimed microfinance organisation and community development bank Grameen Bank. A Grameenphone-Grameen Telecom partnership operates the national Village Phone programme, which puts mobile phones in the hands of very poor women who then operate a business, offering access to communications services to their neighbours.

This programme is not purely altruistic and has been an important component of an encouraging growth and profitability story for Grameenphone - and in a market where other cellcos have struggled to succeed. In this blog's most recent previous article, we heard from the CEO of rival Banglalink, which is owned by Egypt's Orascom Telecom. Ahmed Abou Doma explained in a recent statement that apart from the market leader (Grameenphone), "others are continually posting losses".

The Economic Times article also states that the Indian Government is keen not to send out the wrong message to foreign investors and has therefore "come around to the view that the Norwegian giant should not be held back from picking up up to [a] 74% stake in Unitech Wireless simply because it has a successful presence in Pakistan. " Keeping the human assets of the Indian and Pakistani arms of Telenor separate is expected to take care of risks such as spying and subversion, the article suggests.

For Telenor, good news from India comes at the same time as much less encouraging news from Russia. Within the last few hours, Reuters has reported that the Norwegian group has lost another round of its legal battle over its stake in Russian cellco Vimpelcom. The latest development in a long-running and acrimonious saga sees a Moscow appeals court rejecting Telenor's latest attempt to delay the enforcement of a USD 1.7 billion fine owed to Vimpelcom. Telenor faces the prospect of losing its stake in the Russian company after bailiffs ordered the sale of its shares to cover the fine that a Siberian court imposed for allegedly holding back Vimpelcom's expansion in Ukraine. Maria Kiselyova of Reuters writes that the case is being closely watched as a guide to the climate for foreign investors in Russia, coming after the shareholder battle last year that forced management and personnel changes at BP's Russian oil joint venture, TNK-BP. Kiselyova asserts that analysts watching the case, brought by Farimex, a small shareholder in Vimpelcom, say the forced sale of Telenor's stake in Russia's second-biggest mobile phone company by subscriptions "would further undermine confidence in the rule of law in Russia." She continues by saying that Telenor views the case as part of a protracted dispute with the powerful conglomerate of Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, Alfa Group, the other strategic investor in Vimpelcom. Alfa, as Kiselyova notes, has denied any links to Farimex.

These developments follow a Q2 performance which beat the expectations of analysts polled by Reuters. The Norwegian telco posted a bigger-than-expected 6.8% rise in Q2 core earnings and curbed investments to protect against a potential fall in mobile revenues amid global economic hardship. EBITDA rose to USD 1.24 billion.

Telenor also cut its CAPEX target, excluding investments in India, to 13-15% of its revenues from an earlier prediction of 15-17%. An impairment charge for its Serbian operation, linked to a poorer outlook for that country, hit its bottom line, driving earnings per share down from last year's figures.

It remains to be seen, though, how a bigger stake in India's Unitech Wireless and possibility of losing its foothold in Russia and the wide CIS (where Vimpelcom has numerous subsidiaries) will affect Telenor going forward.

Telenor: good news from India; troubles continue in Russia/CIS

Mobile applications used to alleviate poverty in Africa and Asia

Earlier this week, global not-for-profit organisation the Grameen Foundation announced the launch of a suite of mobile applications developed with Google and cellco MTN Uganda. The applications deliver highly useful services and information that were not previously available to Uganda’s poor and disadvantaged communities.

The Grameen Foundation's role is to help the world's poorest people to gain access to financial services and technology solutions through the provision of financing, management strategies and technology to the local organisations that serve them. The Foundation also spearheads technology initiatives that create new microbusiness opportunities for the poor, provide telecommunications access for the world's rural poor, and improve their access to health and agriculture information and other services.

I learned of the launch via the Kiwanja.net blog maintained by Ken Banks, the founder of FrontlineSMS, a free large-scale messaging solution for NGOs and non-profit organisations working in the developing world. Having had the pleasure of meeting Ken once (albeit too briefly) and having sung his praises more than once here, it was interesting to learn that he was also involved in the early stages of the Grameen Foundation's Ugandan initiative, spending a month on the ground studying a mixture of geography, culture, challenges, data availability and technologies in and around Kampala.

If, like me, you find Ken's work - and the work of the many, many organisations now using FrontlineSMS - to be fascinating and inspiring, I'd encourage you to read his review of an exciting twelve months since the release of the application's most recent version in June 2008.

I can also suggest an interesting read for those of you who like a dash of Hollywood glamour with your telecoms news and your accounts of how mobile technology improves lives in developing countries. This comes in the form of a press release from the University of Canberra (Australia), whose researchers are working with the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, an organisation founded by tabloid favourites Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The researchers are trialling a deployment of FrontLine SMS for Cambodian farmers which is aimed at helping to improve the lives of some of the poorest people in the country. The system can be used to alert villagers about disease outbreaks, and to provide other important health and agricultural information. An example of the latter is helping farmers access the price of maize or soybeans on demand, so they are in a stronger position to negotiate the sale of their crop.

Back in Uganda, meanwhile, the suite of five mobile services announced this week are provided using Google SMS Search technology and the MTN network. They are:

• Farmer’s Friend - a searchable database with both agricultural advice and targeted weather forecasts
• Health Tips - which provides sexual and reproductive health information
• Clinic Finder - which helps locate nearby health clinics and their services
• Google Trader, which matches buyers and sellers of agricultural produce and commodities as well as other products

Uganda, where mobile market penetration stands at 33.63% (as of June 2009) according to WCIS, has yet to see the deployment of 3G mobile broadband networks, and is also a market in which the majority of handsets in circulation are presumably more basic models. With this in mind, then, these services are SMS-based and designed to work with low-end devices, thereby reaching the broadest possible audience.

Despite the mobile market growing strongly in Uganda, the low penetration rate (vs. a world average of 63.05%) is evidence that SIM cards and handsets remain beyond the reach of many in terms of affordability.

This need not mean, however, that services of this kind - or indeed access to basic mobile voice - cannot be accessed by those not able to buy a phone of their own. Uganda is, after all, one of the countries most strongly associated with the the Village Phone concept, which involves prospective subscribers taking small loans to purchase a phone and SIM card. These users then provide services to their neighbours in rural areas, for which a fee is charged. This way, a Village Phone entrepreneur repays the original loan and then has an ongoing, sustainable income stream. The entrepreneur's customers, meanwhile, experience an improvement in their own living standards as a result of having access to communications services.

As you might expect, then, the Grameen Foundation's press release this week makes it clear that the new SMS-based services can be accessed by existing Village Phone Operators, thereby leveraging an established means of connecting the poorest people with useful services.

Much of what I have read and heard about life-improving services in developing countries has stressed that the telecoms operators, at least, do not regard their involvement in projects like this as an act of charity. On the contrary, the oft-articulated argument is that this is good business - if these services boost the productivity of rural people and assist in lifting them out of extreme poverty, this creates a prospective new customer segment for MNOs where none previously existed. This spirit is evident in comments made by Noel Meier, CEO of MTN Uganda, who said that his company "hoping to reach people in rural and disadvantaged communities while we build up a new line of business for the company."

Having dedicated much time here of late to gossip about M&A activity, it's been good today to look away from the boardrooms and towards the users of the services provided by telcos in developing countries. I remain hopeful that the profit motive can be successfully reconciled with the alleviation of poverty and misery. Stories like the ones recounted today keep that hope alive.

Mobile applications used to alleviate poverty in Africa and Asia

Nokia: Low TCO is key in emerging markets - but how to achieve it?

I recently made reference to an emerging markets-focused publication which I consider to be an excellent source of information and insights: Expanding Horizons magazine, which is offered to ICT decision-makers in the private and public sectors by Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks. The latest issue is a special edition packed with interesting articles from the last 2-3 years. Expanding Horizons aims to explore the socio-economic benefits that mobile technologies offer as well as best practices from around the world in order to encourage affordable mobile communications and bring the Internet to the next billion consumers. Its editors also aim to demonstrate how to create favourable environments for market growth in developing countries.

One of the most recent articles opens with a challenging question: Why is TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of USD 5 per month possible in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh but not in 76 other emerging markets covered in a study conducted by Nokia in 2007. For the purposes of the study, TCO was defined as a combination of the service fee, taxes and mobile device price. The study found that the average TCO for subscribers in these developing countries was USD 13 per month and its authors asserted that bringing this figure down to less than USD 5 would enable a majority of low-income prospective subscribers to use mobile services. Surely, then, all four South Asian countries with outstandingly low average TCO should have very high mobile penetration rates when compared to the broader selection of emerging markets. Let's look at mobile penetration in these four countries as of December 2008, according to the World Cellular Information Service.

• India: 28.31&
• Pakistan: 51.68%
• Sri Lanka: 49.48%
• Bangladesh: 28.95%

Of the 76 countries found to have higher average TCO, quite a large number have outperformed these South Asian markets in terms of mobile penetration. Let’s pick out some examples, choosing only countries with lower per capita GDP and/or ranking lower on the Human Development Index than India. Again, the figures are from the Informa Telecoms & Media World Cellular Information Service:

• Vietnam: 79.37%
• Yemen: 28.53%
• Kyrgyzstan: 65.83%
• Cameroon: 31.01%
• Nigeria: 44.50%

I wish I had time now for a detailed discussion about why some of the above countries, all of which have higher average mobile services TCO than the South Asian markets, have done better in terms of getting mobile devices into the hands of larger slices of their populations. In lieu of that discussion, for which I hope to find time another day, it does, at least seem fair to assert that while low average TCO is highly desirable, it is clearly not the single most important factor for mobile services to be taken up by the less affluent population segments in developing countries.

This is not to say, of course, that it is not worth trying to understand how TCO can be minimised. Nokia were interested enough to commission a follow-up study, executed by LIRNEasia, a regional ICT policy and regulation capacity-building organization active across the Asia Pacific.

So what explanations were found for the USD 5 TCO in the four South Asian countries? The Expanding Horizons article states that "surprisingly, the data led to the exclusion of such factors as per capita GDP, mobile penetration and growth rates, population size and density, and governance." In each instance, the article continues, other countries surveyed with more favourable values for any one of these characteristics also had monthly TCO levels substantially exceeding the crucial USD 5 per month. Instead, "our study told us that the two factors most common among the four countries that had the lowest TCO levels was superior market access and business model innovation," said Mr. Rohan Samarajiva, executive director of LIRNEasia. "In addition to the availability of low-cost handsets and modern wireless infrastructure equipment, a market requires a ‘disruptive competitor’... one who does not play by the established rules."

To summarise, the strategies of these 'disruptive competitors' have, according to the article, involved shifting the operator’s focus to lower income consumers and increasing network utilization. The article continues that this kind of strategy is built on the principle of widening the user base significantly, handling a greater volume of smaller transactions very efficiently, driving down customer acquisition costs and creating an efficient network architecture. All of this is done, continues the article, with the goal of allocating the network’s fixed cost structure over a broader user base while significantly raising more marginal revenue through higher numbers of previously under-served, low-income consumers.

In the case of Bangladesh, my guess is that the first-mover in terms of being a 'disruptive competitor' would have been Grameenphone, famous for its association with the Village Phone microfinance initiative, now replicated in African and other Asian markets, which puts mobile devices in the hands of low-income subscribers in rural areas and enables them to build sustainable businesses. In the case of the other three markets, the identities of the 'disruptive competitors' does not immediately spring to my mind. Perhaps some helpful reader has a view.

Nokia: Low TCO is key in emerging markets - but how to achieve it?

How rural users gain from connectivity in emerging markets

The theme to which I have really warmed in the last few days is that of how telecoms and Internet services are improving the lives of poor people in developing countries, especially those who live away from major towns and cities. I have tried to examine how this kind of humanitarian objective can be reconciled with for-profit telecoms sector businesses seeing a solid return on their investments and thereby building shareholder value.

My most recent post, for example, mentioned Village Phone projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia and those involving subsidiaries of MTN in Uganda and Rwanda. This did include a video clip about the Village Phone initiative in Uganda, but I am conscious that I have otherwise been a bit vague about precisely how access to services makes a positive impact on the economies and social conditions of rural communities in emerging markets. In the following clip, which relates to the Rwanda project, we see how a small business works more efficiently by gaining the facility to order materials online rather than having someone travel to make a purchase. The same business has also gained from being able to access international markets for its products.


As well as showing us the benefits for users of services, we also hear echoes of a point discussed here. In the clip, MTN Rwanda CEO Themba Khumalo says: "we are creating a base of potential customers into the future. Not the very far future. The near future." This chimes neatly with the 2005 quote from Neil Gough of Vodafone which I dug up for Saturday's entry: "all of these results were achieved through enterprise rather than aid. A clear success story in commercial terms but one that also had a profound impact on the development of the economy and society."

This is taken from the Autumn 2008 edition of Ericsson 's online magazine 'Telecom Report' and is part of a longer video article on Corporate Social Responsibility. In my last post, I looked at the enthusiasm of Ericsson's rival Nokia Siemens Siemens Networks for work of this kind, quoting the company's Head of New Growth Markets, Rauno Granath who is adamant that "there is still a lot of pure business sense for operators to reach the rural areas." With that in mind, I do wonder why the presenter of Ericsson's video magazine saw the need to round up the item by asking whether the case of the basket weavers of Rwanda is "a marketing ploy or sincere commitment", particularly because it's not immediately clear whose possible 'marketing ploy' he is referring to. Does he mean a marketing ploy on the part of MTN? It is hard to tell, not least because I am not sure who commissioned and produced the film from Rwanda. MTN? Ericsson? Some third party? Whatever the story, I feel sure that Ericsson would not want the remark to suggest any cynicism on their company's part regarding the idea of bringing communications services to poor people in rural areas in the developing world - not least because in late 2007, the Swedish vendor announced its own partnership with the United Nations and The Earth Institute to provide connectivity to African villages through the same Millennium Villages project mentioned in the Rwanda clip.

In the clip, and via Ericsson's November 2007 announcement, we can see that as well as improving the efficiency of the villages' nascent entrepreneurs, access to the Internet is being used to benefit the education of children. Ericsson's Millennium Villages announcement also emphasised the health benefits, quoting Jeffrey Sachs, special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General and head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, a key partner in the Millennium Villages project: "A mobile phone is one core breakthrough technology; it won’t end malaria by itself, but it can make it possible for a mother whose child is dying of malaria to access a community health worker to ensure that her child gets the emergency treatment they need to stay alive."

I only wish these points were always so clearly articulated in the general news media. The UK's Guardian newspaper supports development work carried out by the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref) and Farm-Africa in Katine, a rural sub-county of north-east Uganda. The project was launched by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and is being funded by donations from Guardian and Observer (the paper's Sunday edition) readers and Barclays Bank, which initially gave £500,000 to the project and will match fund donations over the course of the project up to £1m.

The Katine project is more than just a fundraising push. Via the Guardian's dedicated Katine website readers can follow how the money is spent, how development works (the successes and the failures) and how the lives of the sub-county's 25,000 inhabitants are changing.

While this all sounds very good, something I did find rather frustrating was an article earlier this month, which I felt made a fairly weak case for spending donors' money on providing Katine resident with Internet access. I felt the flippant title ('Learning to surf') and the fact that the piece does not really go into how Internet access will benefit the villagers makes it an unhelpful contribution to the debate around this.

Last month, however, there was a better Katine article covering mobile phone use and how "the latest technology is enabling villagers to bypass middlemen and find out the prices their crops will command." I also noticed that Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net fame responded to the article's point about how mobile users in Katine charge their phones. There is more about this issue from Ken on one of his 2008 blog posts.

That's all for now. In the next hour I have to head for the airport to take the last family vacation before starting my challenging, exciting new assignment. I daresay that by the next time I am on online there will be plenty of news emanating from Barcelona worthy of comment here.

How rural users gain from connectivity in emerging markets

Emerging markets to get a deserved look in at a downturn-themed Mobile World Congress

An averagely busy life does not allow for blog entries as long as novellas. I also doubt that posts as long as that would be read from start to finish by equally busy readers. Some topics, though, are worth exploring at length, and I was conscious yesterday of having downed tools before getting close to sharing more than a tiny fraction of what I've learned about the theme I was discussing - how successfully the telecoms sector is reconciling its for-profit commercial imperatives with a desire to improve the lives of poor people in developing countries. What follows today, therefore, is a little more exploration of this broad topic.

A company which got a mention here yesterday was Grameenphone, the cellco which owns the largest share of the mobile market in Bangladesh - 46.75% by December 2008, according to Informa Telecoms & Media's World Cellular Information Service. We considered the idea that the MNO's owners, Telenor and Grameen Telecom, have been at odds, with Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Laureate behind the Grameen family of companies apparently claiming that Telenor's need to build shareholder value has not always sat comfortably with the social and non-profit agenda of its Bangladeshi partners.

For many, I will be rehashing a very familiar story as I take a look at the form this agenda has taken. Some readers may know the story less well and not be fully aware of how cellcos elsewhere in the world have been inspired by Grameen Telecom/Grameenphone initiatives. The tale is one of my favourite examples of the telecoms industry changing lives for the better so I will indulge myself by repeating it, hoping that there is something new here for at least one reader of this blog.

The most famous Grameen Telecom/Grameenphone project must be Village Phone, an inititative which provides telecoms services to underprivileged people in rural Bangladesh. Prospective Village Phone subscribers must first become members of Grameen Bank and take out a small loan. This loan is then used to purchase a handset and SIM card. Once given a phone, the subscriber is encouraged to provide services to people in the adjoining area. In this way, the borrower repays the debt to the bank and earns a profit. In 2006, I welcomed a representative of Grameen Telecom to a conference I hosted in Dubai. Participants watched a moving video which showed how the Village Phone project was transforming the lives of poor Bangladeshi villages, mostly women.

This model has been replicated elsewhere in Asia and also in Africa. I think the most recent example is that of the Village Phone project launched in Indonesia by the Grameen Foundation, Qualcomm and Bakrie Telecom, a CDMA WLL operator that is seeking to establish a national presence with its Esia brand.

In July 2008, Global Mobile Daily reported on the project, whose name, 'Uber ESIA', means 'joint cooperation' in the Indonesian language, and which is aimed at delivering affordable access to remote rural areas using 3G CDMA technology. Similar to the original Bangladeshi model, the plan is to work with local Indonesian microfinance institutions to enable clients to borrow sums needed to purchase a Village Phone 'business in a box' consisting of a mobile 3G CDMA-based device and charger, marketing materials, tariff posters, business cards and training materials.

Earlier examples of the Village Phone model being exported are those of the Grameen Foundation's collaboration with MTN's Ugandan subsidiary (launched in 2003) and with MTN Rwanda (launched in 2006).

This clip (in Dutch, with English subtitles) tells the story of the Ugandan initiative:



Qualcomm's involvement in the Indonesian Village Phone project is further evidence to support a point made in yesterday's post - that telecoms operators are not the only communications services ecosystem participants which can support initiatives designed to improve the lives of poor people in emerging markets.

Another example of this is the 'Village Connection' system developed by Nokia Siemens Networks. I remember this being discussed in an email-only publication to which I was once a regular contributor, the weekly 'Telecoms Vision' newsletter associated with the Informa Telecoms & Media Com World Series. In February last year, this carried an article based on an interview with Rauno Granath, NSN's Head of New Growth Markets. Granath explained that the Village Connection solution, which is comprised of GSM access points located in villages, connected via IP links to regional access centres, was "carrying live traffic in many villages in India." The article stated that the system lends itself to new business models such as operators potentially franchising parts of their business to local village entrepreneurs.

Granath was keen, however, for NSN not to be prescriptive about business models, saying "the Village Connection solution enables new thinking in sharing the responsibilities as well as the business between the new stakeholders, but it doesn't mandate it. I would expect to see a whole variety of ways of working." The article suggested that as different business models emerge, so too could different operator approaches to charging, and went on to discuss other offerings in the NSN portfolio designed to make taking on new subscribers even more viable. An example given was that of improved radio performance and planning through which it becomes possible to allow a reduction in sites, saving money on hardware and, in isolated areas, on power. Also discussed were further ways of reducing power consumption, and thus the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for prospective new subscribers from among the poor of the developing world. These included base stations that can work without air conditioning and combined solar and wind power systems.

Another efficiency measure discussed by Granath concerned airtime distribution purely on an SMS basis rather than scratch cards. "It sounds trivial," said Granath, "but when we think about the tens or hundreds of millions of vouchers that operators need to distribute throughout their subscriber base every year, it starts to get big effects."

The article made the point that these are all admirable attempts to make supplying services to rural populations viable but asked the question of whether such potential subscriber additions are really worth the effort for operators. Granath was adamant that "there is still a lot of pure business sense for operators to reach the rural areas, particularly in markets like India where even the rural population is dense." Apart from which, it may be unavoidable if, as Granath pointed out, universal service obligations are imposed by governments.

For more on the Nokia Siemens Networks view on extending service availability in emerging markets, I would heartily recommend a look at the latest edition of the company's Expanding Horizons newsletter. With an editorial co-authored by Rauno Granath, this is a useful round up not only of NSN's activities in this field, but also related material such as an interview with Gabriel Solomon of the GSM Association, who worries that high taxes on mobile communications are threatening to suppress economic and social development in sub-Saharan Africa.

As I continue to tease former colleagues at Informa Telecoms & Media whose Facebook status updates suggest they are gearing up for a week of very hard work at the Mobile World Congress (while I head off for a family holiday in Florida), I was pleased to note that a senior figure at the company is predicting that the effects of the economic downturn notwithstanding, emerging markets will get a look in during the various conference sessions and workshops and in the countless discussions between individual participants.

Mark Newman, the business information and events firm's Chief Research Officer begins his preview of this year's Barcelona show by asking how how exhibiting vendors "can... showcase new mobile Internet devices, mobile applications and next generation mobile broadband network technology while at the same time satisfy[ing] operators' overriding single objective in 2009 - cutting costs as the mobile industry faces up to the global economic downturn."

All very austere. Almost as harsh as my wife returning from a lunch with friends today and sharing with me the news that several people present have either been made redundant or are expecting the axe to fall very soon.

My own view of the downturn, however, is to be grateful for the fact that however long or deep this recession proves to be, none of us living in the developed economies of Europe or North America will experience the levels of absolute poverty suffered by people in what we call emerging markets. I was therefore heartened by the final comment of Mark's MWC preview: "Growth potential in emerging markets has been a regular theme over the last few years and will remain so at this year's event". For me, that's exactly as it should be, especially if we take the view that telcos and vendors making a profit in developing economies is compatible with improved lives for the poor.

Emerging markets to get a deserved look in at a downturn-themed Mobile World Congress