Nokia (NOK) Pushes Into Africa

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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It would not surprise many people to hear that there are not a ton of cellphone in Africa, especially when Egypt and South Africa are taking out of the mix.

Nokia (NOK) wants to fix that. The company believes that as handset sales slow in Europe and the US, Africa will be the next big thing. According to Bloomberg "Nokia’s bet that Africans will consider buying mobile-phone service to be as vital as paying 11 year-high corn prices stands a good chance of succeeding."

It is a cynic’s position and one that has a cruel underpinning as well.

The plan by Nokia may cost it at the bottom line. A push into Africa based on discretionary income will almost certainly be a bad move. People will eat before they talk.

Douglas A.McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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