Interesting fact, firstly, I bet you 10 cedis, you are reading this on your mobile phone? Secondly, according to “Time”, more people have mobile phones than toilets, U.N. Study Shows. Out of the world’s estimated 7 billion people, 6 billion have access to mobile phones. Only 4.5 billion have access to working toilets
In fact, according to GSMA, at the end of 2019, SIM connections stood at 8.3 billion representing 103% of the world’s population, whiles the unique mobile subscribers were 5.2 billion representing 67% of the world’s population. Mobile internet users stood at 3.8 billion that is 47%. It is however estimated that unique mobile subscriptions would increase to 5.8 billion by 2025 and in the same year, the number of devices will be about 16.8 billion.
As of the third quarter of 2019, Ghana counted 16.7 million unique mobile subscribers, 15.1 million smartphone devices and 10.7 million mobile internet users in the country.
Ghana has the highest mobile penetration in West Africa and outperformed many of its regional peers. By the end of 2019, mobile adoption stood at 55 per cent, higher than the regional average which is at 44.8 per cent.
Mobile technologies are enabling disruption and changing lives, and the future of everything is moving in the mobile device direction and this will continue to disrupt many organizations and industries.
In deed, only organizations that understand the new phenomenon will exist. Bob Borchers, general partner at Opus Capital and former Apple marketing executive says “The future of mobile will largely be defined by the small, creative entrepreneurs and companies that leverage the device capabilities in new and interesting ways”. These companies have no existing business to put at risk and in so doing, can experiment and explore in ways that the established players cannot. The future of money, health, information gathering and new marketplaces (like tiktok) are in the mobile. The mobile will be able to connect the farmer to an entire community.
This new frontier will come from brands that we have yet to discover. The new brands will perfect “the mobile first strategy”. This is a term tech experts have coined to refer to the primacy of mobile networks made up of modern smartphones attached to a large network coverage area. The mobile first strategy refers to companies’ increasing tendency to design their products for mobile phones or devices before making correlate designs for traditional desktop and laptop computers.
“Mobile first” is being possible because:
• More people access the internet via smartphones than desktops.
• Device manufacturers are selling more smartphones and tablets than laptops
• Everyone you know spends much more time on their phone than they do their desktop.
From the industry perspective, one of such industries in Ghana, that has also been globally disrupted is the financial sector, which has been impacted by financial technology (fintech) and more specifically mobile money from the telcos.
Until the introduction of Apple pay, Amazon pay, etc, most Americans and Europeans had no experience with the smartphone-enabled proliferation mobile money services. Meanwhile in Asia and more specifically China, there has been an overwhelming mobile payment culture for a while now.
The use of mobile money has grown exponentially over the past 10 years, making sub-sahara Africa the global leader in mobile money innovation, adoption, and usage.
According to the Bank of Ghana, mobile money transactions saw a growth from GHC38.5 billion in 2012 to GHS220 billion in 2018 representing 169% change. In that same period, there were 13.1 million active wallets (out of 25 million registered) mobile money accounts. This figure is two times higher than the 12 million registered bank accounts; indicating that mobile technology is playing a key role in supporting financial inclusion across the country.
Financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have equal access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meets their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a responsible and sustainable way. Access to a transactional account is a first step toward broader financial inclusion, since it allows people to store money, send and receive.
Digital money technology – enabled in part by the widespread use of mobile phones – is helping to bring more formal financial services to poor people around the world. Mobile network signals cover about 90 percent of the world’s poor. On average, there are more than 89 mobile phone accounts for every 100 people living in developing countries. This presents opportunities for mobile-based financial tools that dramatically lower the cost of delivering banking services to the poor.
In Ghana, some of key services powering the growth includes peer to peer transactions, micro loans (Quickloan), micro Savings (Y’ello Save, Tbill4All, Pennysmart), micro pension (My Own Pension), micro insurance (AYo, MiWay) and many more.
To ensure the next wave of growth in the mobile money space in Ghana:
Firstly, government would have to support, compel and insist on the use of mobile money for collections that taxes and duties.
Secondly, “Utility payments 2.0” would have to be activated, admittedly, today…some form of utilities like electricity and water is being done.
Lastly, “government-to-people (G2P) 3.0” Would also have to kick in. Currently in place is government of Ghana, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection program for the poor called Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP). The third phase of this project would be to expand to cover health care and utilities for the poor.
Indeed, digitizing of government payments will help broaden the tax base. It is estimated that only 5% of the population on Ghana, pays personal income tax. This will further increase the size of the formal economy, as well as support financial inclusion efforts.
As Ghana moves into the next phase, of its efforts to ensure financial inclusion, businesses would have to strategize for digital money.
In summary, mobile as the future of everything is critical to growth, while looking at ways to embed mobile money as means of payment. In other words, the two critical questions any business must answer in their strategy session are:
1. Doses the business have a mobile first strategy?
2. The what is the financial inclusion strategy?
Credit: This article was written with the inspiration and content from
• Lesley Silverthorn Marincola CEO, Angaza Design
• Gregory Omondi, Ecosystem Accelerator GSMA
• Selin Ozyurt, Economist, Agence française de développement (AFD)
• Dan Frommer – Founder and Editor in Chief – The New Consumer
• GSMA
Time- https://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/25/more-people-have-cell-phones-than-toilets-u-n-study-shows/
Growth Journey By Frank A 