This BBC business article says “while consumers around the world demand sleek black and silver mobile phones, villagers in rural India buy brightly-coloured handsets in gold, reds and pinks.Mobile phones are as much a fashion statement here as in the trendy bars of Europe. That Indian villagers are beginning to buy mobile phones is indicative of an explosive growth in mobile services in countries where the poorest people live. Of the one million people who become new mobile phone subscribers everyday, about 85% live in emerging markets, according to the mobile phone industry body, the GSMA. But there is growing evidence that mobile phones are more than a fashion accessory and can transform the lives of the people who are able to access them.
The most obvious anecdotal evidence can be seen all over the developing world. From Kampala to Mombasa, handset sellers are plying their trade - some based in small kiosks, others sheltering from the blazing sunshine under large, colourful umbrellas. An enormous number of people, including taxi drivers and tradesmen, now rely on mobile phones to run their small businesses - well over 80% in Egypt and South Africa alone, according to a report by the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). The mobile phone boom has transformed ordinary people into micro-entrepreneurs”.Further,”a ground-breaking study led by an expert from the London Business School in 2005 concluded that an increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people in African developing countries would increase GDP growth by 0.6%. The mobile phone industry, which has turned its attention to the remaining three billion people on the planet without mobile phones, has also sponsored a great number of studies aimed at proving that mobile phones can promote development.One of these studies, carried out by consultancy Deloitte, says the increase in GDP today could be as much as 1.2%”.

Mobile phone lifeline for world’s poor