Nokia said recently it had seen no evidence that the global economic downturn was affecting demand for mobile phones in emerging markets, as it outlined plans for new handsets for developing countries, as reported in the Financial Times.

Alex Lambeek, a Nokia vice-president responsible for the Finnish company’s strategy in emerging markets, said 2008 should be the first year in which the number of handsets sold in developing countries to customers replacing their existing mobiles would surpass those to first-time buyers–particularly in India, China and Indonesia.

Asked whether Nokia had seen any evidence of slowing demand in emerging markets because of the economic downturn, Mr Lambeek told the Financial Times: “The simple answer is no. We see a very strong underlying trend of mobility taking root in emerging markets, and the growth drivers for that are still very much in place.”

Mr Lambeek said Nokia was looking at how to tailor its services strategy for emerging markets, and highlighted Wednesday’s announcement that it is linking with Webmail International, a South African telecoms company, to provide email services on its mobiles in the country. He added that Nokia was interested in developing mobile banking services for emerging markets, as well as informamtion services to aid productivity in industries such as agriculture.

Nokia’s emergence as the dominant player in developing markets comes at a time when Motorola’s handset business is ailing, and has been split off from Motorola’s other operations.

More than two billion people in the world have a cellphone. But for the world’s largest mobile phone companies, a new race has begun for the next billion. Most growth will come from the developing world, which already has more cellphones than now exist in industrialized countries. In fact, more cellphones are bought every day in Africa than in North America. And microfinance, which has propelled companies such as GrameenPhone in Bangladesh to close to $1 billion in revenues, has a role to play.

Says David Keogh, deputy director of the Grameen Foundation’s Technology Centre in Seattle (as reported in the World’s Poorest Nations New Frontier for Cellphone Giants from the Toronto Globe and Mail):

“It’s a win-win-win model, all the way down. Worldwide, rural markets have not really been cracked open by the telecom operators, simply because they’re not willing to invest . . . what we’ve done with organizations such as MTN is to say, ‘you have a channel to market: it’s the microfinance sector.’” MTN Rwanda and MTN Uganda are replicating GrameenPhone’s phone-lady scheme to reach into rural villages.”

A very unusual and innovative way to raise money for social causes has attracted such of the world’s best known consumer product companies, such as GAP, Converse, Armani Exchange, and Motorola. They are selling products under the band name Red and donating a percentage of profits to the Global Fund (a project supported by Tony Blair, Bono, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others). Red is a brainchild of Bono’s. (Want to Help Treat AIDS in Africa? Buy a Cellphone, from the New York Times.) 

To date the Global Fund has raised $10 million in Britain, with which it is testing treatment of HIV-positive women and children in Rwanda. Red products are just hitting shelves in the U.S.

Bill Gates told the New York Times:

“Red is one of the first major efforts to tap more Americans to contribute to fighting AIDS a continent away. And they can do so simply, just by switching their cellphone or buying some of the clothing that’s part of the Red line.”

Says Ron G. Garriques, president of mobile devices at Motorola: “I don’t believe it’s giving up profit. What I believe is, it’s making more profit.”