The consumer technology for low-income

If Tomi Ahonen is correct, the mobile will kill once the money (paper). However, if this does happen, will start in developing countries.

This week, Visa announced that it will offer mobile payment services to developing countries. The intention is to serve nations where there is still no banking network and enable the population to pay bills and make purchases by phone.

The service will be prepaid and will be available initially in Nigeria and Uganda, before being made available in other African countries.

According to a study group GSMA, Africa has the mobile technology market fastest growing in the world. Part of the African population already uses mobile phones to do almost everything, including shopping, paying bills, getting microcredit. Approximately 30% of Kenya's economy moves through cell phones. The m-banking has been around for over 4 years.

When reading the news of the expansion of mobile payment services in Africa, the researcher reminded CK Prahalad , creator of the concept of " Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid . "

The term is used in relation to business development based on new technologies for low-income people.

According to Prahalad, there are many opportunities on the basis of the social pyramid are still poorly known. With the exploitation of these opportunities, people with low income can be included in the market, fostering entrepreneurship and " reverse innovation "(innovation that comes first in emerging countries and is then exported to developed nations).

An example of such innovation is the universal battery charger of the Phoenix , technology first developed in countries that had no electricity and that now is being exported to developed countries.

Far more than we think, and consumer technology markets and low-income pontencializa innovations.