That is, they say that there are around 100M people on the planet—the entire planet!—that have a purchasing power equivalent to $20K/year or more. And 4B people today—the bottom of the pyramid—who have an annual purchasing power of $2K or less. The ‘next 10%’ would be considered an adjacent market in this context, while we also see a very large and emerging market that includes a significant component of the ‘bottom of the pyramid’—the poorest of the poor. What is important to say at this point, is that in this research we are not interested in charity or philanthropy—we believe, if we can do it right, we can actually build large and sustainable businesses based on these markets. The top 100M represents a relatively saturated market—the bottom of the pyramid—or even the middle—is virtually a green field. Of course there are enormous challenges, both in terms of technology and the broad issues of effective business models—and that is the core of the research agenda.

That is, they say that there are around 100M people on the planet—the entire planet!—that have a purchasing power equivalent to $20K/year or more. And 4B people today—the bottom of the pyramid—who have an annual purchasing power of $2K or less. The ‘next 10%’ would be considered an adjacent market in this context, while we also see a very large and emerging market that includes a significant component of the ‘bottom of the pyramid’—the poorest of the poor. What is important to say at this point, is that in this research we are not interested in charity or philanthropy—we believe, if we can do it right, we can actually build large and sustainable businesses based on these markets. The top 100M represents a relatively saturated market—the bottom of the pyramid—or even the middle—is virtually a green field. Of course there are enormous challenges, both in terms of technology and the broad issues of effective business models—and that is the core of the research agenda.

Grameen example—data current to April, 2003.

Grameen Telecom and Grameen Phone are subsidiaries (sometimes owned in partnership, e.g. with Nokia in this case) of Grameen Bank.

Example on right one of many studied where ability to compare prices in village and ‘big city’ via phone not only resulted in lower average price to the consumer, but resulted in significantly lower variation in prices as well.