The following press release about a report from the mobile advertiser mKhoj shows the way that mobile phone usage has exploded on the African scene and how the various players are fighting for market share. What is interesting here is the way that India has taken advantage of multilingual/multicultural marketing in the mobile technology market in Africa. The key paragraph in the press release for me is the following.

Several aspects make the South African market very different from European or North American markets, including cultural and sociological factors. Not only does South Africa have 11 officially recognized languages, scores of other African, European and Asian languages are spoken in South Africa. Couple this with mobile penetration over 100%, and you have an ideal opportunity for mobile marketers with advanced targeting capabilities to capture the cultural context and nuances of languages.

I find this interesting and I predict that we will see an increase in multilingual multimedia mobile capacity and marketing not just in South Africa, but across Africa.

Additional articles

In addition to the report below you might be interest in the following related articles:

NY Times :  Indian and S. Africa Cellphone Giants Plan Merger (you need free registration to access this article)

NEW DELHI — Bharti Airtel of India and MTN Group of South Africa dusted off plans Monday to create the world’s third-largest telecommunications company, an entity that would have $20 billion in annual revenue and 200 million subscribers.

Press Release:

South Africa Mobile Advertising Revenue Surges in 2009 According to mKhoj:  Nokia losing share; iPhone entering the South Africa smartphone market

BANGALORE, India and PALO ALTO, Calif (July 8, 2009)

Today mKhoj, a global mobile advertising network, released South Africa metrics for its network that indicated mobile internet usage is surging in the country, and that the mobile advertising market in that country is very healthy. Over the past six months, mKhoj delivered 5000% greater monetization levels for its publishing partners, and its network inventory grew more than 3000% in the South African market.

The report also showed Nokia making up 39% of the market, dropping handset share of network traffic from 46% in January. Samsung currently holds 33% of the market, and rose from 20% in January. The iPhone made its entrée into the market, but only contributes 0.06% of the total network traffic, making it a relatively small but growing player.

Several aspects make the South African market very different from European or North American markets, including cultural and sociological factors. Not only does South Africa have 11 officially recognized languages, scores of other African, European and Asian languages are spoken in South Africa. Couple this with mobile penetration over 100%, and you have an ideal opportunity for mobile marketers with advanced targeting capabilities to capture the cultural context and nuances of languages.

According to the latest Business Monitor International report, South Africa’s mobile operators will continue the ongoing deployment of HSDPA and HSUPA, which improves mobile users’ experience by increasing peak data rates. This, combined with the launch of new multimedia handsets, is expected to increase South African data service usage even more in the near future.

The top five handsets by market share are as follows:
1.Samsung SGH – E250 – 9.16%
2.Samsung A110 – 4.93%
3.Nokia N90 – 4.54%
4.Nokia N70 – 2.93%
5.Samsung M620 – 2.60%

The majority of mobile browsing occurred on MTN Group Ltd., one of Africa’s biggest mobile phone companies, currently in merger talks with India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd. Cell C and Vodacom take second and third place, respectively.

The top three carriers by mobile ad impressions are as follows:
1.MTN
2.Cell C
3.Vodacom

“We believe these results reinforce our partners’ confidence in our value to provide the best results through intelligent mobile web advertising solutions,” said Naveen Tewari, CEO and founder of mKhoj. “We’re proud to be recognized as the leading mobile advertising network in South Africa.”

About mKhoj

Founded in 2007, mKhoj is a global mobile ad network that delivers the best results to its partners through its intelligent mobile web advertising solutions. mKhoj allows advertisers to discover their target audience using its advanced targeting technology via mobile Internet sites and it enables publishers of such sites to earn advertising revenue. The mission of mKhoj is to provide both the business model and technology to enable the growth of the mobile Internet. To learn more visit http://www.mKhoj.com.