Nigerian Times

9 Nov 2011 08:00 Africa/Lagos Africa Now the World's Second Largest Mobile Market, Reports GSMA CAPE TOWN, South Africa, November 9, 2011/PRNewswire/ -- New GSMA report calls on African governments to allocate spectrum and lower taxes to enable mobile network expansion across Africa,generating major economic and social growth AfricaCom: The GSMA today announced that Africa is now the world's second largest mobile market by connections after Asia, and the fastest growing mobile market in the world. According to the new GSMA Africa Mobile Observatory 2011 report*, Africa achieved this milestone as mobile penetration reached 649 million connections in Q4 2011 (having first exceeded 50 per cent mobile penetration in 2010). Over the past five years, the number of subscribers across Africa has grown by almost 20 per cent each year and will reach more than 735 million by the end of 2012. Ninety-six per cent of subscriptions are pre-paid with voice services currently dominating, althou...

MOBILE WORLD LIVE GSMA Announces mFarmer Initiative Fund mAgri Programme Aims to Benefit 2 Million Farmers in Developing Countries by 2013 PR Newswire CAPE TOWN, South Africa, June 9, 2011 CAPE TOWN, South Africa, June 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The GSMA, the body that represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, today announced at the inaugural mAgri Working Group in Cape Town, the launch of the mFarmer Initiative Fund, supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Fund will encourage mobile communications service providers, in partnership with other public and private sector agriculture organisations, to use mobile communications to provide information and advisory services to smallholder farmers in developing countries living on under US$2 per day. The mFarmer Initiative Fund, which is part of the GSMA's Mobile Agriculture (mAgri) Programme, will be available over a period of two years. "There are over 2.3 billion people living on less than...