Ethnographic researcher Stuart Henshall spent a week in Mumbai, India recently with fellow researcher Dina Mehta, studying mobile culture in India. Dina has collated a selection of Stuart’s observations during his time there. In particular, the Emerging Indian Middle Class and the influence of the China phone are worth the read. Also in the news, Indian ethnographic research firm CKS has just released the Emerging Economies report covering not only India but as also emerging markets in developing nations such as Indonesia and South Africa.

Mobiles and their influence on the social and economic development at the bottom of the pyramid in emerging markets have been globally noted. Released this week by the UN and the Vodafone Foundation is a report titled Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use covering 11 case studies of innovative uses of mobile technology by groups working to achieve the Millenium Development Goals. Also released this week is Going wireless: Dialing for development (PDF) by David Lehr. Unlike the previous report, this focuses more on sustainable business models for mobile phone use and looks at “social entrepreneurs; technology innovators; economic development agencies; incumbent service providers and emerging commercial ventures.”

Micro is the topic du jour in emerging markets. An excellent opinion piece on NextBillion.net quotes CK Prahalad’s latest book, The New Age of Innovation (review),

“today, instead of a small group of people sitting and thinking about innovation, you can have three billion people not only being micro-producers and micro-consumers, but micro-innovators…everybody has an opportunity to contribute to innovation.”

meanwhile The World Bank predicts mobile banking will transform microfinance, creating excitement for entreprenuers even as debates on the topic move The Economist to ask us “Is it acceptable to profit from the poor?“

Business models meant for emerging consumer markets are either being designed for the conditions and constraints inherent in the region or modeled on those that have organically emerged. In 2007, Nokia Siemens Networks launched Village Connection, a cost-effective network system that allows an innovative business model by which operators can bring affordable mobile phone services to remote areas - it has just been awarded an “Excellence in Innovation” award - with two pilot programs, one in South India and one in Tanzania. Vodafone Tanzania has just announced they will be linking the rural to the suburban for the first time via the test village’s GSM grid.

More emerging business models noted this week include a highly profitable shea butter cooperative in Ghana, a pedal powered mobile phone kiosk in Latin America, bringing cheap and hygienic street food to Calcutta’s streets and to conclude on this topic, a must read is Al Hammond’s five part series on the topic of scaling business models at the BoP.

Asian social networking? Overlooked by the buzzmakers, these sites have been making waves in their home countries with innovative websites and features, says Norman Lewis, while the BBC points us to the lucrative opportunities in India. In the meantime, China Mobile is seeking Nokia Siemens Network’s help with their user experience in order to stay competitive in the booming Chinese wireless market. A quote from Norman Lewis’ article underscores the need,

It is important to acknowledge that Asian entrepreneurs were driven to recognise these opportunities through necessity rather than conscious planning. Asian operators have a lot in common with their Western counterparts. Just as mobile operators never envisaged texting becoming a revenue-generating service in the West, but learned to find ways to make the most of it, Asian operators have been forced to come up with solutions that required some innovation.

The key was developing platforms for micro-payments. Necessity was the mother of invention. The deep-seated behavioural impulses behind young people’s engagement with digital media in Asia were captured and monetised in ways few imagined would work. The fact that a Chinese instant messaging company can show operating profits of $245million a year in a country where 75 per cent of internet users earn less than 2,000 RMB/month (less than $300/month) shows how powerful this desire for self-expression, acknowledgement, status and communication actually is in Asia.

If there is a lesson to be learnt here it is that if the user’s needs are placed at the centre of services, and this remains the focus of innovation, viable businesses can be built for the future.
[...]
But even though Asian service providers stumbled upon their business models and innovations by accident, their experiences are important for the future evolution of such services around the world.

Another interesting example of a social networking site, this time on the mobile platform that has caught the eye of buzzmakers is Singapore’s very own BuzzCity with their myGamma. Newly emerging mobile social networking sites are being seen as serious challengers to incumbents like MySpace and Facebook. Of course, they’ll have to plan their iPhone strategies soon! Take a look at where myGamma’s growth is coming from - only the USA stands out in their top ten countries as NOT being an emerging market!

Overall, the network’s top ten markets served two billion ads, which represented annual growth of 800 percent. Here’s where the US fits in to BuzzCity’s world market:

1. Indonesia : 654 million (+ 13328%)
2. India : 577 million (+ 1522%)
3. South Africa : 426 million (+ 418%)
4. USA : 132 million (+ 917%)
5. Kenya : 79 million (+ 424%)
6. Romania : 57 million (+ 446%)
7. Bangladesh : 53 million (+ 305%)
8. China : 37 million (+ 6053%)
9. Brunei : 35 million (+ 221%)
10. Pakistan : 35 million (+ 814%)

EMweekly (previous editions) is a compilation on Emerging Markets news by Niti Bhan and David Tait (of the Emerging Futures Lab).

EMweekly focuses on a wide ranging selection of news, links and articles as well as analysis and in-depth stories from the developing world. You can read it on Putting People First, or receive the EMweekly via rss or email.

The emerging market news update reflects Experientia’s extended research and experience design capabilities in emerging consumer markets in developing nations such as in Sub Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia etc.

This new offering is founded upon a recent structural collaboration between Experientia and three emerging market specialists — Niti Bhan (based in Singapore), Claude Martin (based in France), and David Tait (based in South Africa) — and an extensive research project in Africa we just completed for a major technology company.