A recent estimation published by Frost & Sullivan and Colibria shows that the mobile social networking is expected to register a great increase in Latin America and Africa within the following several years. By 2015, the area should have a number of around 527 million users, marking a ten-fold increase compared to the current number of users. According to the report, the combined market should rise to around US$2.4 billion, mainly due to increases caused by the larger availability of Internet on mobile phones.

“Social networks are an emerging trend in these regions, and due to the lack of fixed infrastructure, the mobile phone is often the only point of access for internet-based services such as social networks. The availability of affordable mobile data service packages is necessary to drive the growing social networking market to the mobile space,” Jon Stephansen, a senior consultant with Frost & Sullivan, stated.

The traction seen by mobile devices on the African market is very high. The mobile connections in the area out pace fixed connections at a rate of ten to one. At the same time, 80 percent of the people in South America own a mobile phone, though only 25 percent of them enjoy a regular fixed internet access.

Keith Gibson, CEO of Colibria, commented: “The specific conditions in these markets have led to an increased need for solutions that make Mobilised Social Networking affordable and easy to implement. This is why we developed the Social Center - to provide operators with a reliable and cost-effective solution that provides all of their subscribers with access to social networks. With the growing consumer interest in social networks, it is important for operators to be able to deliver these services on top of the basic offerings to attract new customers.”

Colibria's Social Center is a social networking solution currently being pushed by operators in these high-growth regions. Movistar Peru and MTN South Africa already deployed the solution, working on feature phones and basic utility phones, which can be found of abundance in these regions. It also offers users the possibility to reduce data traffic and costs.