After several months of negotiation via email and a trip to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, we finally signed the contract and launched Mobile Monday Dakar! Mobile Monday Dakar is the first-ever Mobile Monday chapter of French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa. There has been lots of buzz around mobility in Kenya, Uganda, South Africa… but now French-speaking countries are starting to make the news!
Here are some 2010 numbers and facts about Senegal provided by the Senegalese telecom regulator, ARTP (Agence de Regulation des Telecommunications et des Postes). Senegal has more than 8 million phone subscribers distributed amongst Orange (61%), Tigo (28%) and Expresso (11%) and a mobile penetration rate of around 68%. It was recently announced that Globalcom, the Nigerian operator, will enter the market. The number of Internet users is increasing rapidly to reach 87,000 at the end of 2010 due to more affordable ADSL (89.2% of Internet users) and the introduction of 3G (9.6% of Internet users) by Expresso and Orange.