E-commerce + M-commerce WAY TO GO IN AFRICA

Although a number of e-commerce activities are emerging in most African countries especially Kenya and South Africa which seems to a few light years ahead of the pack, its growth has been slow for a variety of reasons, including low levels of Internet penetration and limited communication infrastructure. These challenges can be also be topped up with a lot of the fear of technology and the trust issue especially in Kenya.
Many Kenyans are still unaware of the opportunities offered by e-commerce. The private sector consists mostly of small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the informal sector. These businesses are widely seen as a potential engine of growth in the information economy. E-commerce offers huge potential to SMEs, including potential strategic benefits such as possibilities of creating new industries, developing new content and chances to find or creating employment. If you have had challenges starting up a business in Kenya from the large capital requirement then e-commerce is the way to go. Imagine from paying rent not forgetting down payment, all the unnecessary licenses, human resource, and all those costs associated with starting a physical shop. That’s if you are a startup…
However, companies and the private sector in Africa have not been active initiators of e-commerce. The major obstacles include lack of suitable legal framework and security instruments, inadequate banking systems, poorly developed telecommunications infrastructure, especially beyond urban areas, and high rates of illiteracy.
Change has come if the statistics by the communications Council of Kenya are true.
Highlights of Q4 2010:
 There are 22 million mobile subscribers in Kenya
 9.5% mobile subscriptions growth, which is increasing over the previous quarters
 6.63 billion minutes of local calls were made on the mobile networks
 740 million text messages were sent
 Prepaid accounts for 99% of the total mobile subscriptions
 The number of internet users was estimated at 8.69 million
 The number of internet/data subscriptions is 3.2 million
 Broadband subscriptions increased from 18,626 subscribers in the previous quarter to 84,726
The 2011 report has just come out and some 4.2 Million internet subscribers growing with 10.9% in the quarter and 37.5% in the year that is to June 2011. This is a good pointer to the opportunities that available online.
http://bits-kenya.com/
This is an online hardware shop that is upcoming and intergrates the use of M-Pesa
http://vc4africa.biz/ This is an impressive page that I have visited and I hope to becoming here more often.
http://kenya.ushahidi.com This is an incident report site that utilizes mobile technology i.e text messages, twitter etc
http://rupu.co.ke Deals page and an online directory.
http://www.techmtaa.com An online technogy blog
http://zackmukewa.com Used to go by the name Urbane Kenyan. From what I see on the page the owner talks about Finance and investment
http://www.rich.co.ke This is a stocks exchange investment website that I think is quit a success and it even has a mobile application that can be downloaded from the Nokia app store.

This is not a very conclusive article as you may see and hence I request for your contribution... Please let me know what you think is the way forward and the sites that incooperating e-commerce with M-commerce thta you know of.