Kyrgyzs Crazy about Cell Phones

InterMedia's research throughout Central Asia shows that use of the internet has remained stagnant while cell phone use has taken off. Cell phone ownership tends to double every year and the interest in receiving news and information via SMS is growing right along with it. One possible reason, according our focus groups in the region: people feel a degree of protection from official scrutiny on cell phones that they are certain they don't have on the internet.

A visit to a local department store in Kyrgyzstan provides an interesting window on these developments. The cell phone market is indeed saturated: the first floor of the largest department store is filled with hundreds of small booths, each hawking any number of brands and styles. Other department stores are the same. It is possible to select a phone from China, the Middle East, Europe or America, although many of them are probably knockoffs. There is even a market for used and stolen cell phones, as crowds of young men gather around the entrances of these stores to compare notes and sell phones.

Phone Numbers for Sale

Why is the cell phone market growing exponentially here? For one thing, this is a land without two year plans, contracts or commitments. One can simply purchase a Sim card, with any number of hours on them, at the local convenience store. You can select the phone number you like best from a chart with choices, and should the phone fail, you can replace virtually any part by a visit back to the local department store.

Another reason for the growth in cell phone ownership is that in contrast to a computer, one can purchase a cell phone from as little as thirty dollars to as much as a thousand. And given the severe power shortages here, a cell phone is considered more reliable than an electrically powered PC. The power is frequently cut, leaving the streets with no lights and people sitting in their houses in the dark in their coats and jackets. Convenience stores are lit by candle light. Many businesses, unable to operate in this environment, are packing up and leaving Kyrgyzstan.

Cell phone vendors are trying a number of strategies to stand out in this saturated market. In fact, there is a twenty-first century version of the sandwich-board man who stands on a street corner bearing an advertisement for a car wash or a hamburger. On a recent visit to purchase a cell phone, I encountered a saleswoman with a red blinking advertisement scrolling across a tag that was attached to her blouse by a magnet.

At the same time there are limits to Central Asians' ability to assimilate this kind of technological change - as my local companion noted, just walking through a department with "so many small things" can be tiring.

 -- Greta Uehling is a project manager at InterMedia