Check out the latest special report on mobile marvels by Economist. For many of the people in Kenya who don't have a bank card and a named address, mobile phones are increasingly becoming an indispensable part of day-to-day life.  Farmers in Uganda are using SMS based query services o know the weather forecast for the coming season so they can decide when to plant. The trends of mobile services in developing countries are summarized as follows:

The third trend is the development of new phone-based services, beyond voice calls and basic text messages, which are now becoming feasible because mobile phones are relatively widely available. In rich countries most such services have revolved around trivial things like music downloads and mobile gaming. In poor countries data services such as mobile-phone-based agricultural advice, health care and money transfer could provide enormous economic and developmental benefits. Beyond that, mobile networks and low-cost computing devices are poised to offer the benefits of full internet access to people in the developing world in the coming years.

And where are the new mobile subscribers?

 

 What does this mean to mobile OEMs and software vendors? I think there are at least two aspects to look into:

  1. From business development perspective: Do we have acknowledged this trend in the global mobile ecosystem and have developed strategy to build products optimized for those booming emerging markets?
  2. Form R&D perspective: What technologies can be applied to these new services to provide better user experience, productivity, security, interoperability, and reliability?  Beyond mobile money, text query service, social finance, and village computing, what else can be developed to address big problems that people in developing countries are facing everyday?
Sounds like unlimted potential if you look at the wide range of devices/services that can be developed for emerging markets, and keep in mind that their buying power will increase significantly as these become an essential part of their lives.