Bottom of the Pyramid Expenditure Patterns on Mobile Phone Services in Selected Emerging Asian Countries

This paper evaluates the importance of mobile telephone expenditure in consumer budgets of the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand. We examine if mobile phone services in the selected countries display characteristics of a luxury good or that of a necessity. Upon evaluating the expenditure patterns as a share of total personal income we conclude the service to be a necessity. Welfare and poverty issues are then addressed with the estimation of Engel curves, as they show how consumption of various goods and services change with variations in the consumer’s income. We estimate Engel curves for expenditure on mobile telephone services for the BOP in the selected countries to show that mobile phones are part of everyday lives among the selected consumer group