ICTworks by Inveneo

Here's an interesting data point on the growth of mobile phones in Africa - they may already outnumber light bulbs in Uganda.

New Ugandan light blub

This idea started with the cNet article For Uganda's poor, a cellular connection, where Dara Karr notes that 10% of Ugandas have electricity but 30% have mobile phones, suggesting that mobile phones could outnumber light bulbs.

From there Paul Boutin who asked if this was really true, could mobile phones really outnumber light bulbs? The response from Jonathan Gosier at App+frica gives us more detail.

He points out that in 2007 only between 5% and 6% of Ugandans had electricity, with demand growing at roughly 6% per year. Yet mobile subscriptions stood at 13% in 2007, and demand is expected to double by 2012.

We can assume that people with electricity have more than one light bulb, but people also have more than one mobile phone, and most phone usage is by pre-paid cards, not subscriptions. So from these numbers, I'm confident that the original postulation is correct: there are more mobile phones than light bulbs in Uganda.

Of course, mobile phone companies may have already realized this, what with phones advertised as flashlights, in this photo by Ken Banks of kiwanja.net