AudiencScapes

The AudienceScapes team is currently conducting preliminary research on the project's recent Zambia survey (implemented April 2010). Here is one the interesting points we have recently discovered in our dataset. Stay tuned to our Featured Chart section for more insights and for our upcoming full reports.

Mobile phone sharing has been a crucial means of expanding access beyond personal ownership for those of lower income status. Thirty-six percent of all respondents who have ever used a mobile phone in the past are dependent upon borrowing a mobile phone for access. Another means of clearing the sometimes costly hurdle of purchasing a mobile phone is the alternative of purchasing a SIM card. This has allowed individuals to become a formal phone subscriber with their own phone number and history, while needing to borrow a phone in order to use it. Here AudienceScapes briefly takes a look at the differences between SIM card holders and other mobile phone borrowers, those who have used a phone in the past but do not own a phone, gain access to mobile communications.

Overall, SIM card holders are nearly twice as likely as borrowers without one to be a weekly mobile user. Interestingly, what may be able to explain this difference in the frequency of use between these groups is how they gain access to the mobile phone itself. SIM card holders were much more likely to cite family, at 74 percent, as a means of gaining access to a mobile phone than those borrowers without a SIM card, at 54 percent.

Both groups of borrowers reported similar levels of access to friends and local businesses. However, the two groups differed in gaining access through other people in their community, as shown in the chart above. What this potentially tells us is that SIM card holders are not necessarily borrowing a phone randomly from individuals but have arrangements with family members or friends. Supporting this assumption is that weekly phone users who must borrow a phone, regardless of whether or not they had purchased a SIM card, reported a much higher rate of access to family members’ phones than those who use a phone less frequently.

What these findings tell us is that for Zambians who do not own a phone, even among SIM card holders, it is gaining access through family and friends that is the possible key driver to increasing the frequency of mobile phone use. Having access to a local business that offers the use of a mobile phone, while present for about a third of borrowers, does not seem to be a key enabler of frequent mobile phone use. This is especially the case for rural mobile phone users who have very little access to store fronts and are more dependent upon communal access.

Related Links:

Young Africans' Access to Financial Information and Services: Lessons from Surveys in Kenya and Ghana

Zambia: Mobile Vouchers for Development