Rental Industry Resonates as Nokia Expands Touch Screen Presence in Africa

It’s surprising to think of, but Africa has the fastest growing mobile phone market on the planet growing by 550 percent. What company is taking charge of this giant expansion? Nokia, with their cheap, simple keypad phones that we were all using years ago. This could be trouble for any company producing touch screen rental and purchase deals.

So how is Nokia taking advantage of this? Nokia owns about 61 percent of the continents device manufacturing, ads, and research. The Nokia giant that has been overlooked in almost every other country by Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s smart-phones, has taken Africa with a swift grasp.

Nokia is up there with Coca-Cola, ranking as the continent’s most recognized brand. Coca-Cola is the most recognizable brand in the world, above anything else.

In a PR by Nokia it states, “Research by Opera Software found, when looking at the top 10 handsets used in each of the 10 largest African markets, that 87 of the 100 total handsets listed were Nokia. In six out of the 10 countries, the top 10 lists were comprised solely of Nokia handsets.”

Nokia is also setting up solar powering projects for their mobile devices. Where energy and manufacturing doesn’t come easy, Nokia is taking the lead against other companies to produce easier ways for their users in Africa to call and text. The Nokia handsets and even a few smart-phone models are becoming ridiculously popular.

So where is Apple? Where are Samsung and Sony? They’re trying of course, but it’s a little too late for that. Nokia has already started programs in schools, like “Mobile Learning For Mathematics,” making their phones invaluable for learning and calculating.

Nokia and Symbian also control most of the market in China and India, the two largest nations that are growing at an insane rate. It’s hard to imagine that this company we hear little about actually dominates a lot of the globe. Nokia’s simple phone models, as well as their more complex ones, have huge popularity in growing nations- which is all that really matters in most markets.

Nokia, touché. It’s a brilliant plan, and Africa has been won over. It will be interesting to see what the other companies decide to do about this, and what this means for the rest of the world and touch screen rental deals everywhere.