MobileActive.org

Cell phones are quickly transforming markets in low-income countries. The effect is particularly dramatic in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where cell phones often represent the fi rst development in telecommunications infrastructure. The twelve million residents of Niger, a landlocked country in West Africa, had 20,000 landlines—an estimated 2 landlines per 1,000 people—when mobile phones were fi rst introduced in 2001. Now Niger has almost 400,000 cell phone subscribers. Although the country still has the lowest rate of cell phone adoption in sub-Saharan Africa, cell phone coverage has had important implications for grain markets and hence welfare in the country.