www.mobileworldmag.

com Issue 18,2010

Sim Registration:
The Telco Rebirth
in Africa

Haiti Disaster
A telecoms success story...

Chams Changes
the game in ICT Training

Mobile Phone will become substitute for credit cards

 Editor’s letter
Group Publisher/Editor in Chief When mobile phones came around to Nigeria it was a dream
Akin Naphtal come true. Many have waited for eternity for the miracle and
anaphtal@mobileworldmag.com it came when some had even lost hope. Before a twinkle of
an eye, Nigeria subscribers hit over seventy millions and still
Editor FRXQWLQJ$QRWKHUPLOHVWRQHLVLQWKHRI¿QJWKHSODQQHG6LP
Anita Moritiwon
registration to kick off by March 1, 2010. Some African coun-
Writers tries have started this, while some are about implementing.
Kehinde Olesin It is an interesting issue to investor, subscribers and telcom
Jonah Iboma companies.

Marketing Executive :LOOPRELOHSKRQHVUHDOO\EHFRPHVXEVWLWXWHIRUFUHGLWFDUGV"7R¿QGRXWUHDG

Yinka Lawal
our interview with the CEO of inMobi. Other things that will catch your interest
Reporter/Researcher include the resignation of Zain CEO and how telcos has responded to Haiti disaster.
Lanre Saliu
Sola Aremu I believe you will enjoy the pot pourri.
Head, Creative
Yinka Adebamiro
Akin Naphtal

How to contact MobileWorld Magazine

UK Contents
0D\¿HOG5RDG

4
Belvedere, Kent
DA17 6DX
Tel: +44 777 510 9698 Cover Story...
NIG Sim Registration:
14 Wright Street The Telco Rebirth in Africa
Adekunle, Yaba
Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: +234 8063603521

6
info@mobileworldmag.com
www.mobileworldmag.com
News
ISSN: 1751-3820
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Liability
While every care has been taken in the preparation of
this magazine, the publishers cannot be responsible MTN, Ericsson and UNDP
for the accuracy of information inherein, or any conse- partners on Millennium Village project
quence arising from it.
Haiti disaster - a telecoms success story...
MobileWorld is a controlled circulation magazine and Vodafone Ghana
QRWDYDLODEOHRQQHZVVWDQG,WLVIUHHWRTXDOL¿HGUHDG-
ers worldwide.
Launches Quality Network Ad Campaign

Design & printed by Instinct Media Chams Changes the Game in ICT Training
MTN Rwanda Launched Mobile Money

Ericsson brings wonder to India: World’s largest

Open University goes mobile

10 Interview
Mobile phones will become substitute for credit cards

The telecom industry

is the most dynamic industry in Sub-Saharan Africa
Photo by: Pippa Hetherington Source; telecomTV/GSMA

Issue 18 2010 3
 INTERVIEW
Mobile phones will become
substitute for credit cards
Mr. Naveen Tewari
- Mr. Naveen Tewari Founder CEO
I
n Mobi has been very busy in the last
few months, your growth in South
Africa, new signing in Australia, new
staff etc, tell us more about InMobi and
the recent happening in the company ?
<HV,Q0RELKDVGH¿QLWHO\VHHQWUHPHQ-
dous activity in the past few months. This
can be attributed directly to InMobi’s
rapid growth over the past year combined
with renewed interest in the Mobile in-
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, our focus was on emerging markets in
Asia, Africa and the Middle East. We
dedicated ourselves to building a scalable,
mobile advertising platform in the areas
well ahead of the competition. We un-
derstood that these emerging markets are
well ahead of developed countries when
it comes to mobile technology. By build-
LQJRXUSURGXFWLQWKHVHPDUNHWV¿UVWZH
ended up with an integrated, intelligent
mobile advertising platform that can be
rapidly deployed in any market.
2009 was the year we began to scale. We
grew from 8 markets to 37 in just one
year and increased ad requests on our
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ULHQFHGH[HFXWLYHWDOHQWLQ$VLD(P-
advertising was not a part of the media
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and some early adopters began to make
it a part of their overall strategy. Today
mobile advertising is on everyones list
and no one wants to be left behind. It
has been a gradual movement, but the
year of mobile advertising is here and is
clearly going to stay for good.
What level of technical support do you
offer publishers ?
We offer 24/7 self support to our pub-
lishers including some major enhancme-
nents to our publisher tools just recently
announced. A quick summary of the 3
major recent publisher product improve-
ments include:
1. Ad Code V2
With our V2 Ad Code, publish-
HUVDUHQRZJLYHQWKHÀH[LELOLW\RI
specifying additional demographic
and targeting parameters while
contacting the InMobi network. This
will greatly improve the relevance
of the ads shown to the users,
GHOLYHUDEHWWHUXVHUH[SHULHQFHDQG
InMobi , an inte-
grated and intelligent
mobile advertising
platform interest in
the emerging mar-
kets is strategic.
In this interview
with MobileWorld,
founder, CEO
Naveen Tewari bares
it wall
10 MobileWorld Magazine visit us at: www.mobileworldmag.com
PDQXHO$OOL[(XURSH5RE-RQDVDQG
North America (Anne Frisbee). These
regional teams provide the local market
knowledge important to our advertising
and publishing customers. On the product
front, we continued to make improve-
ments in terms of targeting capabilities
for advertisers and publishers, reports and
analytics providing insight to improve
52,WKHRYHUDOOXVHUH[SHULHQFHRQRXU
site, and most importantly a dedicated
strategy on smart phones starting in Feb-
ruary of 2010.
How can you compare mobile advertis-
ing industry now and three years ago ?
Three years ago, most people understood
there was potential for mobile advertis-
ing, but few advertisers or publishers
spent time or money in the channel.
Since then, several things changed. First,
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tremendously and smart phone platforms
the likes of iPhone and Android have
brought revolutionary changes to the
creative options now available. Second,
other traditional forms of media and even
the web continue to fragment and frus-
trate advertisers who want to reach and
HQJDJHSRWHQWLDOFXVWRPHUVSUR¿WDEO\
Third, a deep recession in the developed
world combined with a surging interest in
emerging markets pointed forward think-
ing advertisers in the direction of mobile.
To summarize, 3 years ago mobile
boost the monetization by a large
degree. While providing the added
ÀH[LELOLW\WRWKHDGYDQFHGSXEOLVK-
ers, the Ad Code also addresses the
convenience of the basic publishers.
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- Basic : for publishers who seek a
technologically simple way to inte-
grate with InMobi
- Advanced : for publishers with a
need for technologically sophisti-
cated solutions and want to integrate
with InMobi in a deeper way to
share additional information that
might enhance monetization
‡ 7KH$G&RGHDOVRVHUYHVPXOWLSOH
advertisements in a single request.
Basically the publishers can now
call multiple ads simultaneously for
immediate serving. Users will not
only be able to enjoy a quick render-
ing of the page, but the likelihood of
duplicate ads will also be elimi-
nated.
2. Publisher Filters
 8VLQJRXUHQKDQFHGSXEOLVKHU¿OWHU
tools, publishers can better man-
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on the basis of landing pages that
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Ads with unacceptable text
If publishers want to ensure that
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to their users are shown on their
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set, such as
- Filter out ads that contain “key-
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 )LOWHURXWDGVWKDWDUHH[DFWO\
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Ads from competitors
Generally you do not want ads from
your competitors to go up on your
sites. In these cases, publishers can
¿OWHURXWWKRVHDGVE\¿OHWHULQJRQ
competitive landing pages, such as:
- Filter out ads whose landing pages
point to “www.competitor.com”
3. Publisher Reporting and Insights
(Actionable Business Intelligence)
The enhanced Publisher User
Interface now provides a richer
set of reports and analytics to help
make business decisions with higher
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Some key offerings include
 5HSRUWLQJE\FRXQWU\UHJLRQFDUULHU
and handset manufacturer allowing
publishers to track the performance
of the inventory more closely and
take steps to ensure that the highest
ad revenue from the mobile prop-
erty.
- Customizable widgets in the dash-
board to track near real-time KPI.
Also demand dynamic graphs tuned
to publisher needs.
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our technology provides our publishers.
How competitive is InMobi compared
to admob and adsense ?
([WUHPHO\FRPSHWLWLYH:HEHOLHYHRXU
platform is superior to any competitor
globally, particularly when considering
the regional support and local knowl-
edge we offer. Further, our smart phone
strategy to be unveiled in February will
help us further peneterate developed
markets like the US and EU where smart
phones are obviously more critical to the
RYHUDOOPL[WKDQLQHPHUJLQJPDUNHWV
Some evidence to back up these state-
ments include our massive growth in the
EU in only 6 months. We now receive
over 850 million request in that market
and are a solid #2 competitor. The UK
is now counted as our 5th largest market
JOREDOO\7KLVLVVSHFL¿FDOO\DUHVXOWRI
our superior publisher offering combined
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for publishers and advertisers. Many
of our customers are wary of a global
conglomerate like Google controlling
their data. We offer a comparable if not
superior platform, yet maintain an inde-
pendent status globally.
Have you look at exploring african
market after your success in South
Africa?
Yes. That’s been the plan all along. Our
aim was to grow the mobile ecosys-
tem in Africa as a whole and South
Africa was the logical starting point as
the largest ad market on the continent.
After growing to become the largest ad
network in South Africa, we are now
actively working in other markets like
Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt , etc. These mar-
kets have tremendous potential and we
DUHWDSSLQJLQWRLWWRIXUWKHUH[SDQGRXU
African footprint.
What is your current market share in
India and other operating countries ?
We do not know our share per say, but
monthly ad request by continent are as
follows:
Asia: 4950 Million ad requests per
month
Africa: 950 Million ad requests per
month
Europe: 850 Million ad requests per
month
Austrialia: 350 Million ad requests
per month
North America: 250 Million ad
requests per month
Latin America: 150 Million ad
requests per month
What is your business model and your
total mobile inventory across all mar-
kets ?
We are a mobile advertising technology
platform serving three core markets in-
cluding publishers, advertisers, develop-
ers. For publishers, we enable ads on
their mobile web sites as well as mobile
applications and help them make money.
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VKRZQRQWKHLUSDJHVWRPD[LPL]HWKH
ad revenue on their mobile property. We
then enable advertisers to offer a wide
variety of creative units to consumers
and target their ads based on different
parameters like geography, handset, site
type etc. As for our total market foot-
print, InMobi currently has 7.5 billion ad
requests per month and is available in 37
countries across the globe. InMobi has
over 3000 partner publisher sites with
over 250 advertisers on the network.
What are the expectationsof mobile
advertising for 2010, challenges and
opportunities ?
There is so much to be said on this topic.
INTERVIEW
Allow me to stick to 3 key points.
1). This really is the year of Mobile
advertising. It has been predicted to
come of age for a couple of years
now, but we feel 2010 will be the
year mobile advertising truly enters
the world stage as a critical channel
required focused investment. This
claim can be backed up by several
observations and events in 2009.
7KLV\HDUVDZWKHL3KRQHÀRXULVK
DQGPDNHDVLJQL¿FDQWLPSDFWRQWKH
US mobile market both for con-
sumers and developers based on an
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and Apple’s entry into the market
YLDWKH$G0REDQG4XDWWURDFTXLVL-
tions clearly validate the importance
and potential of mobile advertis-
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growth during 2009 illustrate the
desire for publishers and advertisers
to commit to this growing advertis-
ing medium.
2) In the coming year, we believe that
developing nations in markets like
Asia and Africa will see the largest
growth for multiple reasons. First,
these large untapped markets are
made up of mainly younger con-
sumers whose only screen is their
mobile phone. . To leverage this
opportunity, the prices of mobile
phones will fall and operators will
begin to provide more attractive
offers and cheaper prices for data.
Unlike the web in the 90s which
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the mobile revolution is truly global
and offers a much greater opportuni-
ty for wealth creation than the world
has ever witnessed previously.
3) A third prediction for the coming
year would be the breakthrough in
mobile payments. 2010 will see the
start of mobile phones being used
as a mode of payment. Ultimately
mobile phones will become a sub-
stitute for credit cards, cheques, and
other payment options as a more
secure, convenient means of trans-
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infancy, the coming year will see the
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‡ ZKHUHGR\RXVHH,Q0RELLQ¿YHV
years time
Simply put, InMobi will continue to be
the world’s leading independent mo-
bile ad network. We will continue our
rapid growth leveraging our competitive
advantage in emerging markets globally
to build a superior product for publish-
ers, advertisers, and developers. We will
emerge as thought leaders in the space
helping the industry move from where
it is today to becoming one of the most
important advertising channels in the
world.
Issue 18 18 2010
Issue 2010 1111