Disruptive Innovation in Africa – Competing Against Non-Consumption

Disruptive innovations enter at the bottom of a market and provide access to a good or service to a whole new population of consumers. In effect, disruptive innovation is about "competing against non-consumption." In the African context, mobile telephone technology has been an archetypal disruptive innovation. Mobile telephone connections rose from 17 million in 2000 to 620 million in 2010. So-called "smartphones" are generating new waves of disruptive innovation in many fields. This paper examines disruptive innovations in the African context in the fields of computing, banking and finance, education, and health care.