ICTworks by Inveneo

The fine folks over at oAfrica have complied the Facebook growth rates for the last 18 months and they are stunning.

But before you get too excited, they also put these numbers into perspective by comparing the total number of Facebook users to the total populations of African countries. When you look at these numbers, FB's growth is great, but still quite lacking in mass adoption. Here are some highlights worthy of a raised eyebrow:

18 month user growth rate in selected countries

• Nigeria 154% increase to 4,369,740 FB users
• Ghana 85% increase to 1,146,560 FB users
• Kenya 50% increase to 1,298,560 users

.

Facebook adoption across Africa

• 37+ million Facebook users as of December 2011
• 165% median Facebook user growth since July 2010 (114% mean)

.

Penetration rates across Africa

• 2.4% median Facebook penetration rate (3.6% mean)
• 36 nations have fewer than 1-in-20 people on Facebook
• 12 nations have fewer than 1-in-100 people on Facebook

.

Another way to look at this is that with Nigeria's growth at 150,000 new Facebook users ever month, it would take 4 years to reach everyone in Nigeria, if the 154% growth rate remains the same. But it will probably slow dramatically as oAfrica projects:

Facebook adoption in Africa, although rapidly increasing within most nations at the moment, is starting to slow in more developmentally-advanced countries. Even if Facebook user growth rates settle at 25% annually, it could be ten years until Kenya boasts 30% of the population on Facebook. In 17 months, Kenya’s Facebook user rate has gone from 2% to 3%. South Africa’s is near 10% after increasing from 7%. This growth rate of 50% over 17 months for Kenya and South Africa – which we deem “mature” – suggests the challenges large nations face providing affordable Internet and connecting rural areas. Plus, even when Internet access is available, not everyone wants to use Facebook.

What to make of this all? Facebook is a growing presence in Africa and it is an online juggernaut. But African countries have a long way to go before all their people can get online and enjoy the FB experience.

Recently, Apple released its 4th quarter earnings, and the numbers were stunning. Macrumors spells out the highlights of what is now the most valuable public company on earth:

Apple shipped 5.2 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a unit increase of 26 percent over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached 37.04 million, up 128 percent from the year-ago quarter... Apple also sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, up 111 percent over the year-ago quarter. Apple set new company records for iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales during the quarter.

But all those numbers are pretty abstract. Can you even fathom a company where:

1. The iTunes Store alone generated 50 percent more revenue than all of Yahoo did last quarter
2. Apple's profit for the year beats Google’s total revenue for the year
3. Apple's quarterly revenues are over double Microsoft's quarterly revenues

I have a pretty good imagination, and I am still trying to comprehend what all that means. But there is one small metric that is no dream. Its a metric that should have every IT company concerned too:

Apple sold more iPads alone than HP sold PC's

Oh, and iPads are only 20% of Apple's overall revenue stream. Which means that every IT company in America, Africa, and around the world will need to have an iPad strategy in 2012. No more is the PC - desktop or laptop - the center of the computing experience. The iPhone (and to a lesser extent) Android own the mobile phone space and the iPad is now cannibalizing the PC market as people find the sleek aluminum and glass tablet more convenient and powerful than many computers.

iPads are in Africa already

I can hear a few people in the ICT4D space saying "so what?" They believe that iPads are not Bottom of the Pyramid products. To an extent, they are right - most Africans are not buying iPads as consumer items, like is done in wealthy countries. Yet, iPads are here, and cheaper than in Europe.

IDG reports that IT and business professionals in Africa are twice as likely (47%) to use an iPad purchased by their employer than their colleagues elsewhere in the world (23%), and possibly as a result, iPad users in Africa tended to use their devices more for business than entertainment and their levels of work-based communication using an iPad were higher than average.

But what should be noticed is that levels of hardware substitution in Africa are very close to the global norm. 73% said their iPad had partly or completely replaced their laptop. That means desktop and laptop vendors need to develop an iPad strategy now.

Not a tablet strategy, mind you, but an iPad strategy. So far, its the only tablet that matters as IDG found "incredible" brand loyalty to Apple - only 19% of those surveyed in Africa would consider purchasing a non-Apple tablet. And iPad users are popping everywhere, even in rural agriculture.

Question is: what does an iPad strategy look like?

This is an open question. I've explored the iPad's impact on education, but as to an iPad sales strategy, I'm still a bit lost. I do know we all need to find one asap. Or we will all be working in a Genius Bar before we know it.

When working with USAID funding, the purchase of ICT can be a little complicated. USAID would always ask for the source, origin and nationality of all equipment. That is where the equipment was manufactured, where it was purchased, and the nationality of the companies involved.

The expectation was that all three would be from a set of limited countries specified in the implementing agreement via a geographic code. Geographic code 000 was the most restrictive - United States only - and a huge headache for any implementer.

Instead of buying computers, printers, etc from the local ICT company, USAID funded programs had to import all that equipment from the geographic code countries. Often even then asking for a waiver because as Apple demonstrates, S/O/N is a joke when it comes to modern computing technology. Almost all technology is made outside the USA, from a global supplier base, sold by multinational companies with only the vaguest sense of nationality, and often available in-country at competitive prices. Or as USAID itself says:

Because of the end of the Cold War and the subsequent globalization of the economy, this approach has become increasingly difficult to administer and, in some respects, obsolete. The costs of compliance with the complex regulation, and of the self-imposed and unnecessary restrictions on procurement in recipient and developing countries means that the foreign assistance dollar does not go as far as it would with a more straightforward regulation that reflects the statutory authority to procure in the recipient country and other developing countries, in addition to the U.S.

What's even more interesting, is that USAID didn't have to follow this rule - it was a self-imposed relic of the Cold War never updated even though Congress gave it the authority to do so in 1993. Well, finally, USAID has re-written the S/O/N regulation, and we should all cheer. With this Final Rule determination, we are free of restrictive geographic codes come February 7. Just read the detail from USAID itself:

(a) USAID has established principal geographic codes which are used by USAID in implementing instruments. This regulation establishes a presumptive authorized principal geographic code, Code 937, for procurement of commodities and services unless otherwise specified in the implementing instrument. Code 937 is defined as the United States, the cooperating/recipient country, and developing countries other than advanced developing countries, and excluding prohibited sources. USAID maintains a list of developing countries, advanced developing countries, and prohibited sources, which will be available in USAID's Automated Directives System, ADS 310.

(b) For purposes of procurements under the authority of the Development Fund for Africa, 22 U.S.C. 2293 et seq.; for any waivers authorized under Subpart D of this regulation; and if otherwise designated in an implementing instrument, the authorized principal geographic code shall be Code 935, any area or country but excluding prohibited sources.

What does all that mean? By default, we are hereby free to buy from you and me, Africa or America, based on the qualities of the technology, not where it was made or who sold it to us.

Last year, the Canadian/Indian company Datawind, announced the $35 Aakash Android tablet computer as an ICT solution for education. While I still believe that the Aakash will fail education like OLPC did, do not take that as a mark of complete failure. The Aakash Ubislate 7 should be viewed as consumer electronics, and as such, it will be a roaring success.

Free Internet access

Just look at Datawind's core technology, which is all about squeezing waste from Internet data transfers to make even 2G bandwidth feel fast and snappy on a weak chipset.

Its Internet compression technology (18 patents issued & approved) reduces network load, and speeds delivery of content by factors of 10X to 30X. Like the Amazon Silk browser, Datawind offloads much of the browser computation to servers, so just the pertinent web content downloads to the device, not all the webpage bloat that now consumes most browsing bandwidth

During a talk at the World Bank, the Datawind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli revealed that his goal was to use this technology to make the bandwidth usage so cheap that it became ad-supported. In effect, free to the end user. This is the modern killer app - free Internet.

Today, Internet access costs us all significantly more than hardware or software, more than electricity even. Even Intel says that bandwidth costs are the single largest barrier to ICT adoption. And Datawind has cracked that nut.

Just look at the numbers

Now a $47 tablet is exciting. I know a number of geeks who got all lustful for it, who don't even live in India. And in India... Well, let us read what the Wall Street Journal has to say:

On December 14... the Aakash [went one sale] on sale for the absurd price of 2500 rupees, or around $47, hoping to move 100,000 units over the course of 2012. That figure was seen as staggeringly optimistic, since it represented 40 percent of India’s total market for tablet computers. But as soon as the announcement went all, their call center was jammed with calls, and their website started crashing due to excess traffic, to the point where their Internet provider warned them they might be experiencing a malicious hack attack. Their initial inventory of 30,000 units sold out in three days. Within two weeks, they’d built up a backlog of 1.4 million preorders. According to CEO Suneet Tuli, that reservation pool is now over 2 million - and still going strong.

Just wait till the word gets out that $47 is close to the total cost of ownership in India! If the Ubislate 7 uses the Datawind servers when it connects to the Internet from Africa or America, expect this revolution in Internet access to spread faster than Facebook and Twitter combined!

Tony Roberts has compiled a handy list of ICT4D conferences this year for you to start putting on your calendar. Which of these do you plan on attending?

1. Feb 28-29th, New Dehli, India: Mobiles for Development
2. Mar 12-15th, Atlanta, USA: ICTD 2012 - preceded on Mar 10-11th by co-located ACM DEV
3. Mar 19-23rd, Abuja, Nigeria: Idlelo5 – Free & Open Source Africa
4. Mar 21-24, Kampala, Uganda: ICT for Africa – eInclusion
5. May 14-18th, Geneva, Switzerland: WSIS Forum 2012
6. May 23-25th, Cotonou, Benin: e-Learning Africa
7. May 29-31st, Lausanne, Switzerland: Tech4Dev 2012
8. May 29th-Jun 1st, Cape Town, South Africa: Mobile Health Summit
9. Sep 5-6th, Kristiansand, Norway: IPID 2012 ICT4D Symposium
10. Nov 13-15th Kathmandu, Nepal: 6th ICT for Development & Education Conference

And Tony has a great reminder for event organizers:

If you are still planning your event then perhaps consider either avoiding the second half of March and May or maybe piggy-back on someone else’s event - by scheduling in the same town on the days immediately preceding of following an existing event - so that we can reduce the environmental and financial costs of attending international conferences.

I'll second that request with one of my own: please make sure your attendees know and use the same Twitter hashtag so we call all follow along. I would suggest #ICT4D as a start.