Distimo, a mobile analytics company based in The Netherlands, releases free monthly publications with recent findings on the app store market. Aggregated are downloads from Apple, BlackBerry, Google Android, Nokia, Palm, and Windows app stores. Although the author of the report dwells on Asian trends, the accompanying map provides insight into African habits:

Little data for Africa, but some of the countries with data are notable. Pink = high download volume. Lesotho is lost in SA... {Distimo}

The map (on a log scale and unadjusted for population size) is based on download volume for the top 300 most popular applications. In May 2011, seven African nations achieved the necessary download volume to meet the magic threshold. Uganda reportedly had the minimum volume of all countries visualized, although still surpassed many nations (including most of Africa).

African nations with substantial app download volume include:

• South Africa
• Egypt
• Tunisia
• Kenya
• Mali
• Senegal
• Uganda

Would anyone have guessed Mali potentially has more mobile app download volume than Uganda? For one, Uganda is a vital part of the vibrant East African tech scene. Secondly, the population of Uganda is more than double that of Mali.

To Mali’s credit, Bamako is home to an annual Barcamp, Amadou Toumani Toure’s Facebook pages have decent fan bases, Orange Mali offers IPv6, and 3G Internet can be found for 5,000 CFA ($10 USD). Perhaps John Perry Barlow was on to something in 1998 when he wrote about his experiences in Mali saying, “it turns out that Tombouctou is already wired beyond any of my expectations.”