Today’s Wall Street Journal Europe cites Google’s recent investments in sub-saharan Africa (Google’s keyword for Africa: growth).
Google aims to encourage adoption of its search, mapping, and mobile phone technologies in the region, attracted by the high growth-potential in a continent of 1 billion people.
Broadband internet penetration in sub-Saharan Africa remains incredibly low today. Lack of wireline infrastructure and unreliable electricity sources in some regions render fixed-line internet access difficult. Today Africa as a whole captures 4% of the world’s internet users, with countries like Ethiopia and D.R. Congo, the continent’s second and fourth most populous countries showing an internet penetration of only 0.4% (source: Internet World Stats). China, by comparison, has 21% of global internet users.
I’ve written in the past about my conviction of the transformative potential of mobile phones in Africa. While I found myself firmly on the mobile side of the mobile vs. one-laptop-per-child debate in the past, one could argue that this distinction is now moot given the increasingly pc-like capabilities of smartphones, for which Google bets on growth in Africa.
Though small-scale ISPs pepper certain parts of the continent, mobile internet services in Africa are predominantly provided by mobile network operators via usb data cards or smartphones.
Not all ventures are proving to be viable. In Uganda for example, Google partnered with South African carrier MTN and the Grameen Foundation to launch three text-based programs for mobile phones: Search, Tips, and Trader. Although the services attracted a large user base when they were first rolled out, 2.7 million texts sent in the first 6 months, according the WSJ article, usage rates sharply declined when MTN began charging for the service.
Other initiatives are gaining more traction. The WSJ recounts the project of Tunji Lardner, a consultant in Lagos working with the state government, who uses Google Maps to prevent a common scam: selling homes in Lagos that aren’t actually for sale. Or take the case of the non-profit organization VetAid. VetAid has started using Android phones donated by Google in Tanzania and Kenya to track the health status of livestock.
