January 28, 2005
Mobile power
Across the poorest regions of Africa and South Asia telecoms operators are rolling out mobile phone networks and making a tidy profit, reports the BBC.
"Their customers, meanwhile, reap their own benefits, by checking out commodity prices or connecting with business partners or family.
In Nigeria, the average mobile phone generates $55 in revenue every month. In Rwanda and Mozambique, two of the world's poorest nations, it is $20.
It's not that Africans are mobile phone crazy. Rather, many phone owners make money by reselling airtime to their local communities.
And here is the opening for the next profit niche with a social purpose, says Rory Stear of Freeplay Energy, the company that develops and sells 'wind-up' energy generators best known in the 'wind-up radio'.
"Kenya has 30 million people and three million cell phone users - but only 200,000 households that have electricity," he says.
"People mail their mobile phones to relatives with electricity at home just to recharge them... Now think of the possibilities of selling an energy solution together with a telecoms partner", says Mr Stear."
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