Although mobile connectivity is playing a key role in enabling the inclusion of underserved in the socio-economic development of many African countries, the journey to achieving full digital, social and financial inclusion in the region may be still far as a result of many challenges.

WONT he break it?’ Barely five years ago, if anyone saw your toddler with a smart phone or tablet, that’s exactly what they would say. But today, it is a given that children are good with technology. Although it is nearly impossible to believe that this is not as a result of some genetic make-up peculiar to any child born after Facebook, the ubiquitous presence of technology today ensures that more and more children are crawling around the online space.

IN every mobile market, the customer is actually becoming king. Thank God for the open platform which android brings that has opened up opportunity for mobile Original Equipment Manufacturers, OEMs, to manufacture phones with similar features irrespective of status and financial muscles.

The chairman of the GSMA, Jon Fredrik Baksass, yesterday unfolded the direction of the mobile operator’s association for the developing markets before international audience at the ongoing GSMA Mobile 360 series Africa holding in Cape Town, South Africa.

Although the number of smartphones in Africa currently stands at 160 million, according to the latest report by the GSMA, to achieve more mobile connectivity in the sub-Saharan Africa, two giant service providers, MTN and Etisalat have said that cost of 3G enabled smart phones was still a key barrier to connectivity.