Tag Archives: prepaid economy

The Perfect Storm: A Continent, A Phone, A Business Model

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 20, 2019

In the mid 1990s, in a small city in northern Finland, engineers and designers began work on the product development of a mobile phone that would eventually become one of the best selling Nokia models ever – the 3310, released in Europe and the Far East in the year 2000. The continent of Africa was […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Airtime, Analysis, Articles on Design and Innovation, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consommateurs, Consumer Behaviour, Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Emerging Markets, Flexibility, global, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Mobile platform, perfect storm, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Rural Economy, South Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology, User research | Also tagged africa, digital ecosystem, mobile phone, the perfect storm | Leave a comment

The Prepaid Economy as a Commercial Operating Environment

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 18, 2019

I have been looking for information the global prepaid mobile subscriber market since yesterday morning. Initially, all I wanted to know was the percentage of prepaid subscribers in China, as I wanted to compare operating environments in major mobile markets like India and China, against the fast growth emergent one in sub Saharan Africa. What […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Airtime, Alternative currency, Analysis, ASEAN, Assumption filter, Banking, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, China, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consumer Behaviour, Culture, Design, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Flexibility, Frugality, Ghana, global, Income, India, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Nigeria, Perspective, Philipines, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Rural Economy, Savings, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Also tagged africa, china, digital mobile social ecosystem, digital social economy, ecosystem, emerging markets, india, informal economy, mobile, prepaid business model, south east asia | Leave a comment

Africa’s emerging digital, social, mobile economy is neither formal nor informal but a bridge in between

By Niti Bhan | Published: January 7, 2019

Let’s call it the prepaid economy, I told Michael in our regular weekly call the other day. We were exploring the emergence of commercial activity on digital platforms in Kenya, and debating whether it could still be considered as an element of the existing informal economic ecosystem, or, was it something wholly novel and different? […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Airtime, Alternative currency, Analysis, Assumption filter, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consumer Behaviour, East African Community, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Flexibility, Informal & Flexible, jua kali, Kenya, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technology | Also tagged africa, african digital economy, digital social economy | Leave a comment

Lessons from African Fintech for the Gig Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 20, 2018

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to share my research on the past decade of mobile ecosystem development across the African continent with Dr. Antti Saarnio, founder of Zippie; co-founder of Jolla (developers of the Sailfish OS, among other things). “We want to test our product first and foremost in Africa because there is […]

Posted in Africa, Airtime, Alternative currency, Analysis, Assumption filter, Banking, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consumer Behaviour, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Emerging Markets, Flexibility, Frameworks, Income, Informal & Flexible, Kenya, Loans, Mobile platform, Perspective, Philipines, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Also tagged android, design, fintech, gig economy, informal economy, mobile, mobile money, mpesa, pilot, smartphone, user research, user testing | 1 Response

Why the Potential of the African Consumer Market Cannot be Considered in Isolation from the Informal Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 17, 2018

Top flight management consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte, PwC et al have been taking a good long look at the emergent African Consumer Market for a number of years now. McKinsey, in fact, has just released a book on the theme, authored by their leading Africa experts. All of them acknowledge the existence of […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Analysis, Assumption filter, Biashara Economics, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consommateurs, Consumer Behaviour, Distribution, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Innovation Planning, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Produits de grande consommation (FMCG), Report Review, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa | Also tagged African Consumer Market, biashara economics, biashara economy, informal economy, marketing strategy | Leave a comment

All Hail the Business Model Behind the Global Gig Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 11, 2018

The first world’s ardent embrace of the gig economy is already over. Buyer’s remorse is setting in, even though it may have helped global unemployment hit its lowest point in forty years. What will remain, however, is its impact on the usually overlooked Rest of the World, where the ability of an app to drive […]

Posted in Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consumer Behaviour, Culture, Emerging Markets, Flexibility, Frameworks, Income, Informal & Flexible, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Systems, Technology | Also tagged africa, developing country, gig economy, india, informal economy, mobile, uberization, uberization of african informal economy | Leave a comment

Africa’s Delivery On Demand Apps are Transforming the Informal Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 10, 2018

When women in rural Rwanda can buy sanitary napkins and contraceptives, on demand, simply by pushing a few buttons on their phones, you know the digital informal economy is here to stay. And, its not just imported apps and social enterprises pushing this digital commercial activity. The “uberization” of the African informal economy is well […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consommateurs, Consumer Behaviour, Distribution, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Flexibility, Frameworks, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Mama Biashara, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Produits de grande consommation (FMCG), Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technology, Value | Also tagged app economy, apps, informal economy, mobile apps, uberization of african informal economy | Leave a comment

From the Caterpillar to the Butterfly: Africa’s Mobile Boom Years Are Over, Here’s What Next

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 9, 2018

For the past 15 years, Africa watchers have been waiting for her mobile phone industry to reach a critical landmark – almost full saturation of the market. This milestone may be close at hand, as recent news and data show. In June 2018, Kenyan mobile subscriptions reached 98% penetration, a 13% jump over the previous […]

Posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Airtime, Emerging Markets, Ghana, global, Informal & Flexible, Kenya, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Nigeria, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology, UEMOA | Also tagged africa, cellphone, milestone, mobile, mobile ecosystem, mobile phone, mobile subscribers | Leave a comment

Lessons from the Informal Economy: Managing on Irregular Payments in the Gig Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: November 3, 2018

Last week, an unusual report was released in Great Britain. Lloyds Banking Group (LBG), together with the Resolution Foundation, addressed the question of earnings volatility in the UK, a first for a developed country with a formal economy. Their research and analysis made use of anonymised transaction data from over seven million LBG accounts. That […]

Posted in Assumption filter, Banking, Biashara Economics, Business, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Frameworks, global, Innovation Planning, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Strategy, Systems | Also tagged future of work, gig economy, informal economy, irregular incomes, risk | Leave a comment

Rural Household Financial Management on Irregular Incomes

By Niti Bhan | Published: October 18, 2018

While all farms are not alike, and scale and variety and geography differs, the pattern of household financial management holds its fundamental logic across continents. As we saw previously, an experienced farmer tends to fall somewhere in between a salaried employee and an odd job labourer in their ability to predict with any reasonable degree […]

Posted in Africa, Analysis, ASEAN, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Cattle, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Livestock, Mama Biashara, Perspective, Philipines, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Rural Economy, Savings, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, User research | Also tagged biashara, biashara economics, biashara economy, frameworks, household finance, household financial management, informal economy, research | Leave a comment