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Nokia and Google have one thing in common - they understand that dominating the mobile internet in future means investing now in emerging economies, where wireless devices will often be the only access to the web. Google has made a strong move by creating an alliance with France Telecom Orange, to bring basic data services such as Gmail Chat to low end handsets, using the cellco's SMS networks.

This shows similar thinking to Nokia's successful mobile mail and messaging strategies, which delivered simplified services to basic handsets and targeted those who had never had an email account. These Nokia offerings were eagerly adopted by carriers and customers, and other vendors have also been active in the field, such as Myriad Technologies, which offers smartphone-style apps using USSD, a GSM protocol for the real time exchange of simple text information.

Orange, the most active of the European giants in expanding in Africa and the Middle East, has also been particularly enthusiastic about such mass market data offerings. In its deal with Google, it will enable its customers in Africa and the Middle East to access Gmail Chat and other text-based apps via SMS in areas where there is limited availability of web access via PCs or more advanced phones. The Gmail SMS chat service is available initially in Senegal, Uganda and Kenya and will eventually be launched across the whole area, and the partnership will be extended to other services in the future.

According to research firm IDATE, only 1.4% of the population in the region had access to broadband services at the end of 2010, while 62.5% had access to mobile services.

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