Dion Price, CEO of Trustonic, states that the mobile industry understands how to bridge the digital divide. So why hasn’t it? Find out here
Billions of people are excluded from the digital economy; this is not a mobile network coverage issue; it is a smartphone affordability problem. The mobile industry has had the tools to fix this digital divide for a decade. Why hasn’t it?
Access to healthcare, education and employment is increasingly reliant on apps, internet access and digital tools. Smartphone ownership is vital to avoid exclusion and disadvantage. Yet almost a third of adults still do not have access to the online world via their phone.
This means that over three billion people face daily digital inclusion barriers, lacking the wealth of information, opportunity, and connection that comes with having a smartphone.
The cost of connectivity: The digital divide around the world
Affordability remains the single largest barrier to ownership. According to the GSMA, buying a smartphone equates to, on average, 26% of an African worker’s monthly wages, and this rises to almost half the average adult’s monthly take-home pay in countries such as Liberia or the Central African Republic.
With additional ongoing monthly expenses to manage, such as mandatory internet access, the initial cost of the device is compounded, making it clear how so many have been priced out of the smartphone market.
The smart solution
These challenges need not be insurmountable: flexible digital micropayments and buy now, pay later (BNPL) models both break down high upfront costs into manageable instalments for those receiving daily or weekly wages with little or no credit history. Already starting to establish itself in Africa, the BNPL sector was worth $5.2 billion across the continent in 2025 but is expected to boom over the next few years, expanding to $16.8 billion by 2031.
To achieve this rate of growth and ultimately put smartphones into the hands of millions more people, effective BNPL device financing requires collaboration across the entire ecosystem. This crucial partnership work sees the financier scoring the customer through a loan management system and providing access to credit, the mobile operator or money partner facilitating the repayments, and the locking partner helping mitigate the risks of high levels of non-payment.
Credit score thresholds must also be carefully balanced: not so high as to exclude those most in need, and not so low as to offer plans to those who genuinely cannot meet the payment terms.
The role of the locking partner
Working alongside retailers, mobile operators, financiers and OEMs, locking partners bring security to the process, benefiting these partner businesses and their customers.
For the individual who, without a bank account or formal credit history, may not have taken out finance on any product before, reminder notifications and customised messaging help support them to pay their smartphone bill or make a top-up payment on time. Meanwhile, retailers and carriers do not need special smartphone hardware variants or apps.
As a final measure for repeated or long-term payment default, operators can restrict or lock the device, which not only incentivises payment at that time but also positively influences future payment behaviour.
Device locking is essential to avoid the risk of bad debt or repayment delinquency by practically eliminating the issue of Non-Performing Loans (NPL). With the assurance that customers will not default on payments, higher-tier devices can be offered, increasing the Average Selling Price (ASP) of entry-level devices.
This seemingly simple solution has been proven to reduce payment delinquency rates by up to 70%. The more payments operators successfully recoup, the more new customers they can onboard, further reducing the digital divide.
By removing the risks associated with device financing, especially in the very regions where smartphone ownership makes the biggest difference, the partners involved in BNPL and flexible micropayment provision are helping fuel positive change, rather than perpetuating the inequalities that have arisen from reliance on traditional, upfront payment models.
By breaking this cycle of exclusion and instead focusing on educating individuals, creating trusting partnerships and providing them with essential technology, it is possible to expand affordable access to smartphones. For the billions of adults currently living without them, financial models represent an opportunity for digital and financial inclusion.
The GSMA predicts that a 10% increase in mobile broadband penetration yields roughly a 1.5% growth in GDP as new consumers access an online world from which they were previously excluded. It’s clear that closing the usage gap is a macroeconomic imperative that the industry cannot ignore.