Wireless report has today documented that key growth areas for large carriers and device makers will be pushing mobile internet features and applications, pioneered on smartphones, to the mass market and to emerging economies.Nokia has made significant moves by launching Ovi web services for new economies. Nokia and Vodafone will develop a customized version of the Opera Mini browser for low end and midrange handsets, to be marketed across EMEA and particularly in developing economies. Nokia is also working with Mobile-XL, a US-based mobile company, to embed the latter’s SMS-based browser in handsets for selected African markets. Leading mobile telecommunications provider Zain today announced plans to bring mobile banking to over 100 million people in East Africa with the launch of its new service, Zap. Zap will be initially available in Kenya and Tanzania prior to launch in Uganda, representing the most comprehensive mobile banking service ever launched and will provide millions of people with access to banking for the very first time. According to Anne Freuehauf, a southern and east Africa analyst risk consultancy Control Risks, the legal tribulations of ANC presidential candidate Jacob Zuma “will remain South Africa’s crucial political risk factor” in the coming year. At a presentation in Johannesburg yesterday, she stated that “the corruption trial scheduled for August raises all sorts of concerns over his ability to fulfil his duties in office and the prospect of paralysis (in South Africa) at the highest level,” later stating that policy is a further underlying concern. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the leader who forced foreign oil companies Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp. and Repsol YPF into joint ventures as minority partners, scored a victory in his drive to stay in power as voters scrapped constitutional term limits that would have forced him from office in 2013.

In a research note, Carlos Caicedo, head of the Latin America division at London-based political risk firm Exclusive Analysis, documented that “low oil prices, economic stagnation, increasing unemployment and difficulties for the government to fund the generous subsidies that the poor now consider as their rights, are likely to fuel social discontent.”