Facebook And Alibaba Will Turn The World’s Poor Into Entrepreneurs. Xiaomi Will Sell Them Smartphones

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Facebook and Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA) Limited are on a new mission: solve world poverty by helping more than 4 billion people from low-income countries get access to the Internet — and engage in e-tailing entrepreneurship.

If the two companies succeed in this mission, there will be a new market frontier –the “fortune in the bottom of the pyramid”—to use the C.K. Prahalad’s term. And the Internet will be the medium for the world’s marketers to reach these 4 billion consumers.

But it won’t be easy. These consumers will continue to have low incomes vis-à-vis consumers in rich countries. And many will continue to suffer from high illiteracy rates.

Source: Forbes (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Technology
Tags
Base of the Pyramid, impact investing, social enterprise