Masary Mobile Commerce Services Operations: Is it True that no Business can be done Serving the Bottom of the Pyramid?

Masary Egypt started its mobile commerce services operations the first week of June 2009 and just after one month of operation it managed to hire more than 100 merchant outlets in rural areas to distribute Masary’s first service; Electronic Topup. Masary is focusing on non traditional merchant outlets to first distribute its planned digital and commerce services across Egypt and then deploy the services in the Middle East in partnership with key strategic local players in each country.

Masary is positioning themselves as a third party service provider within the value chain and the payment echo system, serving telecommunication companies that have service coverage across the whole country with a significantly large distribution network. Telecommunication companies believe that there is a great potential in rural areas; the question of how to serve this market in a very cost efficient manner is the main focus of Masary’s business development team members.

Some people think that is no business can be done serving the bottom of the pyramid; which is not true on most cases. The key is to understand the need of the rural area segment and live it, to be able to serve them and provide them with a value for the money they will think twice before they spend.

Currently Masary is piloting some Micro Finance mobilization services and testing the concept and the feasibility for each player in the system. Financial Institutions find it very expensive to serve rural areas; commercially it is not feasible, and MFIs always look for new innovative ways to increase their market boundaries and customer base.