MobileActive.org

There was a time when the adoption of mobile phones was expected to be limited to the wealthy and early mobile phone designs included a number of features that supported shared use on the assumption that few people would be able to afford one of their own. 4 billion plus cellular subscribers later and it’s the mobile phone owning residents of Accra or Cairo that are more likely to use multiple devices than the residents of London or Tokyo.

The first billion mobile phones were sold in about twenty years, the second billion took four years, and the third billion were sold in just two. That the mobile phone has had a positive qualitative and quantitative impact on many of the world’s poor is no longer an issue for debate, and the simple fact that many invest in a few months salary to purchasing one suggests that it continues to meet a broad spectrum of base user needs from directly creating revenue generating opportunities to indirectly supporting survival. As a personally carried, connected device the mobile phone is in a prime position to bring mobile money services to the world’s unbanked, and today there is much activity, debate and not a little hype on its potential (Ramussen, 2009).

This paper discusses the factors that will affect whether recently established mobile money services such as M-PESA can also achieve success in other markets, and whether new services and business models will fly or fail? What can we learn from previous research into mobile phone behaviours and practices?