State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

This is based on a recent article in WSJ. The idea is simple but not easy to achieve: create “good enough” products which are low cost and avoid complexity. Examples in the story include a small cooler and Tata Nano car. Take a look at the interactive part of the story here. Below I’ve included a relevant section for the blog.

Unexpectedly strong demand for cheap cellphones in recent years revealed the untapped markets in India’s villages and slums. Thanks to $20 cellphones and two-cent-a-minute call rates, Indian cellphone companies are signing up more than five million new subscribers a month, most of them consumers no one would have considered serving only five years ago.

At the same time, many of the nation’s poor have become aware of material goods available in developed economies thanks to a proliferation of television networks, radio stations, newspapers and magazines.

As with all innovations, many of these new products will fail to make their mark. But with so many unlikely products aimed at overlooked consumers, the trend could bolster bottom lines over time, create new companies and lead to a new kind of multinational corporation that thrives outside of the developed world. Unilever NV and General Electric Co. are taking notice. GE’s chairman, Jeffrey Immelt, on a recent tour of Asia, outlined how the global giant is restructuring to take advantage of what he calls “reverse innovation.” While in India this month, he said the innovations in medical equipment here could eventually help bring down the cost of health care in the U.S.