Winning poor consumers in Africa: best-practices from mobile network operators

Abstract

Within the last decades the understanding of poverty has been changing dramatically, resulting in a whole new perception of market opportunity by identifying four billion people living at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) as the auspicious future pool of valuable consumers. Being considered as one of the key technologies for developing a commercial infrastructure in BOP markets, this study conducts several best-practices within the mobile communications sector in Africa. In order to win poor consumers alliances hereby play a crucial part. We build on the work of Anderson and Markides (2007) and Prahalad (2010, 2012) and develop an analytical framework of five essential factors for doing business at the BOP: availability, affordability, awareness, acceptability and alliance.