Are Foreign Telecoms Finally Cheap Enough?

As the economy becomes more globalized and wealth increases in developing nations, you would assume that more and more people would have access to Internet and wireless networks. And you would be correct: In the past decade, mobile penetration in Africa has increased from one in 50 people to more than one-quarter of the population. Yet Africa’s penetration rate -- the percentage of the population that has access to wireless -- is only 28%, compared with about 80% in the Americas. This means that telecom companies have plenty of growth opportunities -- not only in Africa, but in Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America as well. And by and large, foreign telecoms have done well for investors. For instance, over the past five years, exchange-traded funds like the iShares S&P Global Telecommunications have been able to outperform the broad index by more than 10% and the world index by about 5%.... Read more