CellBazaar Brings the Market onto the Cell Phone
By Azam on September 8, 2008 
CellBazaar is a very exciting and interesting company that solves a significant problem of giving people an access to the market with low broadband access and penetration which would normally exclude large number of users and participants essential for a vibrant market. Cell Bazaar allows users to access the market through a simple cell phone. Cell bazaar is essentially a craigslist for cell phone users allowing the “next billion” get connected. Interestingly, the company is founded by Kamal Quadir, the younger brother of the founder of Grameen Phone, currently the largest wireless carrier in Bangladesh. Iqbal Quadir founded Garmeen phone to bring phones to the masses with the idea that connectivity brings greater productivity: the concept of “network effects” leading to increases in economic productivity. CellBazaar takes the concept of connectivity and productivity further by creating a market accessible by the cell phone.
The concept for CellBazaar started when Mr. Kamal Quadir as a Grad student from MIT presented his 30-page conceptual paper and won the MIT’s annual Ideas Award. Kamal Qadir was able attracted seed-funding from American investors Gray Matters Capital and including the founder of Ebay, Pierre Omidyar. The company offers the classified service for free for users. CellBazaar makes money by receiving a portion of the wireless carrier SMS fee used to access the service.
CellBazaar has an well established partnership with GrameenPhone. Grameeen Phone subscribers’ have the ability to access to the virtual marketplace within a reach of the 20 million mobile-phone subscribers of Bangladesh’s GrameenPhone Ltd. CellBazaar has also partnered with leading newspaper group The Daily Star and Promthom Alo, a leading vernacular language Bangladeshi paper. CellBazar is partnered with Brac Bank, a leading banking group that makes loans from mico level to housing loans.
Connectivity
Although 75% of Bangladesh’s population has no access to electricity and Internet penetration is only 0.03%, CellBazaar has more than one million users. A quarter of them use the service on a regular basis, with about 550 new items posted each day. Almost all of that is by mobile phone, though CellBazaar also offers an online platform.
“It’s just amazing to know that people who wouldn’t usually use such technology now know how to and can,” Mr. Quadir said. To overcome illiteracy, CellBazaar has a voice-message option whereby posts are read out in Bangla, the national language.
Mr Quadir further commenting on the mobile phone as a device that can change the world:
That mobile technology can be a force for change in developing countries. If we start seeing it more as a minicomputer in our pocket rather than a talking device, we can imagine hundreds of viable business opportunities through mobile technologies. Thus, my advice would be to keep in mind that mobile technology has gone beyond simply taking pictures and sending them to loved ones. It is now capable of providing major services such as banking and health care, which could impact society on a larger scale.
CellBazaar empowers the rural community by giving access to the population where even electrical power fails to reach and bring the market into the palm of their hands. The service allows for greater transparency for traders such as farmer and fishermen to get better pricing for their goods. CellBazaar gives the rural community better access and leverage into the market. As a result, a recent research report found that 59% of the postings made on CellBazaar are from rural areas.
Mr Quadir plans expand CellBazaar to developing markets in East Africa and South Asia where Internet penetration isn’t widespread. The market is huge opportunity by the number of expected wireless subscribers projected to reach 5.2 billion by 2011 worldwide. The world currently has 3B cell phones connected, and 2B more mobile devices are projected to connect with a large portion from emerging economies and rural areas around the world. The opportunity to connect these users with market like Cell Bazaar is huge. The mobile and wireless market is probably the largest market that has yet to be fully addressed. The answer to the problem will not be the personal computer but the mobile device right in the palm of the hands of the users.
Reading List
WSJ Selling Potatoes By Phone In Remote Bangladesh
MobileActive CellBazaar SMS Marketplace Bangladesh
Tags : bangladesh, CellBazaar, Craigslist, eBay, Grameen, Grameen Phone, Gray Matters Capital, Iqbal Quadir, Kamal Quadir, NextBillion, Pierre Omidyar
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