The demand for Value-Added Services (VAS) in North African markets is rising as telecoms and media converge further. If you are a VAS provider looking to expand in this region, here are the questions you should be asking:
1. What are the key North African hotspots?
Country | Q1 | Q2 | Q on Q Growth | |
1 | Egypt | 288,800,000 | 497,200,000 | 72% |
2 | Sudan | 125,500,000 | 278,500,000 | 122% |
3 | Morocco | 30,600,000 | 105,800,000 | 246% |
4 | Tunisia | 23,800,000 | 36,600,000 | 54% |
5 | Algeria | 4,700,000 | 9,200,000 | 96% |
6 | Libya | 164,700,000 | 100,000 | -100% |
North African Growth | 638,100,000 | 927,400,000 | 45% |
Traffic in North African countries has seen tremendous growth in the last 18 months. Surfing activity in the first half of 2011 generated as much traffic as during the preceding year. And in the second quarter of this year, we served nearly 1 billion ads in the region.
With the exception of Libya, the upward growth trend is expected to continue. Egypt (72%) and Sudan (122%) each serves more than 100m ads per month and more growth is expected.
Morocco saw very strong growth in Q2 (246%) as a result of moves in 2010 to liberalise the market. Competition has driven prices down and increased the number of subscribers. Competition has also driven up the level of innovation. Maroc Telecom, for example, announced plans in December to launch a service that will allow people in France (later in Spain and Italy) to add money to the accounts of friends and family in Morocco. This will effectively enable Maroc Telecom to tap into the significant volume of remittances sent by the Moroccan community in Western Europe.
2. What are users surfing with?
Nokia is dominant in all markets, although Samsung is a strong second in Morocco and can influence campaign targets and outcomes.
Phones | EGYPT | SUDAN | MOROCCO | |||
1 | Nokia | 75.3% | Nokia | 88.1% | Nokia | 44.5% |
2 | Samsung | 9.7% | Samsung | 4.9% | Samsung | 26.3% |
3 | White Box Phones | 7.1% | White Box Phones | 3.3% | Apple | 10.6% |
4 | SonyEricsson | 3.4% | SonyEricsson | 2.4% | LG | 8.4% |
5 | Apple | 1.7% | Vodafone | 0.8% | SonyEricsson | 5.2% |
3. What are users looking for?
Mobile surfers in these countries, as in all markets, are hungry for content. And there are significant opportunities for brands that provide content related to Entertainment & Lifestyle and Mobile Content (mobile games and videos continue to be a favourite). Community services (social networking) continues to draw members and these sites are visited frequently. 
All in all, we expect carriers to be among the first to promote mobile entertainment on the mobile internet. But there's also definitely room for smaller players to make a sizeable dent in this competitive yet rapidly changing mobile-entertainment space.
