New studies show that with a population of 32 million, Morocco as 36.55 million mobile phone users. Despite the statistics showing a 100% penetration rate, that number is impossible. Many citizens in rural areas have no means to use or acquire a cell phone, and there are many Moroccans who are either too young or too old to need a mobile device, let alone operate one. The answer to this intriguingly high number; the high use of pre paid sim cards on multiple networks make its very hard to track when a device becomes inactive and the user switches to another. This leads to the appearance of singular customers operating multiple devices.
Still, these numbers are incredibly impressive considering Morocco only recently joined the mobile phone boom. Despite having only relatively recently been exposed to mobile phone use, Moroccans seems to have skipped over television and radio in favor of mobile news; so much in fact, that in Morocco, mobile phone users account for 81% of all internet users. Experts project that the mobile phone boom will only continue in Morocco, leading to a stronger emphasis of mobile news through Northern Africa.
Source:
http://riadzany.blogspot.com/2012/01/morocco-mobile-phone-mania.html
I think that this is huge for the Moroccan community. I believe that the increase in cell phone use in Morocco is a very positive step for them and maybe a gateway to other things becoming more easily available to them such as television, radio and internet. This could really help Morocco become more technologically advanced.
I feel that mobile news is the best news. I understand why the Moroccans are so big on it. I also agree with them in that the youth should not own mobile phones, I feel like you should start using mobile phones when you are in high school. In the United States young people are glued to their social media and cellular devices. Technology can help and hurt societies. Cell phones do save lives, and help people in many ways, i’m glad they are on the rise and have such strong statistics in Morocco.
I think it’s really interesting how Morocco jumped almost completely past television and radio in favor of mobile news. This is unexpected considering the lack of availability and resources to those in rural areas and the lack of technological knowledge that the old and young have. Although the numbers of those with mobile phones are misleading, I think it’s still an impressive number that Moroccans can only continue to contribute to. A way to try to make the number more accurate would increase the availability of wireless networks as opposed to having a prepaid cell phone.
I think it’s crazy how many mobile phone users there are in Morocco especially with those numbers. As it says in the post, knowing that they have joined not long ago to the mobile phone population that’s a big jump to how many of them now have phones. I think it’s good that the mobile phones will increase but at the same time I think it’s bad just because I feel like technology is a good and bad thing to society in general.