From Haiti and Jamaica, to Tonga and Papua New Guinea, Irish mobile entrepreneur has built a $2.2bn mobile phone business Digicel where others will not go. War, famine, poverty, entrenched elites, these are the keys to his success in trumping local carriers and expanding market size with cheap prices and an independent network of cellphone masts.
Having set up a mobile phone network in Ireland in 1995 - selling out to BT for $3bn to BT Group 6 years later pocketing $300m himself - he snaps up Jamaican mobile phone license for $50m around 2002. Before Digicel arrived in Jamaica, 10% of Jamaicans used mobile phones. 6 years later in 2008, 90% do. Same story setting up in Haiti in 2006 quickly building 120,000 users, two years later he had 2 million. This just shows the explosive nature of the mobile when you open up the market with cheap, affordable technology for the masses.
Find out more in August's edition of Forbes, just out on their website today.
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