The Impact Investing Case for Telecom Companies

credit: Ashoka

"We are so used to being almost permanently online that we don't really appreciate what we have and do not really know what to do when we're not," Joni Mitchell wrote in her 1970s song "Big Yellow Taxi."

Well, telecom companies "provided the services and products that we have gotten to regard as a basic need: connection," writesjoerd Rozing in an article for the Guardian.

And it's telecom companies that provide that basic service.

In fact, Rozing writes, telecom companies "primarily contribute to the societal transition by facilitating access to key products, services, and markets that broaden opportunities for marginalised groups and individuals to participate in cultural, political, and social spaces."

Examples include providing access to broadband Internet, mobile phones, TV, and so on, as well as "material improvement in their personal financial situation, which enhances their possibilities to participate, when people upgrade from a 3G phone to a very affordable 4G smartphone, as research from Safaricom shows."

In fact, telecom companies "represent one of the least diverse sectors to work in" in emerging markets, but in developed markets, "they are therefore more stable and predictable, as they generate most of their revenues from subscriptions."

They also tend to offer an attractive dividend

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