Mobile phone industry targets the Third World
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
With a saturated market in Western Europe and North America and a user base adopting costly new third-generation features at a seemingly glacial pace, the mobile phone industry is turning to the Third World and asking the heads of developing countries to lift regulatory barriers.
According to Motorola CEO Ed Zander, addressing a forum at the 3GSM World Congress here Wednesday (Feb. 15), mobile phone penetration is a powerful engine for economic growth. He said, ?Every time you have ten more phones per 100 people, you have an increase in GDP (gross domestic product) of 0.6 percent.?
Zander?s company is a leader in providing ultra-low cost (less than $40) handsets to poor countries, shipping at a rate of 31,000 phones a day.
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