Geo Pulse #59 — Sizing an emerging GEO when the big tools have no data

Geo Pulse #59 — Sizing an emerging GEO when the big tools have no data
This week: how to research a market your usual stack ignores.

— DataReportal / We Are Social Digital reports → free, per-country internet, device, and platform penetration. Start here for any GEO you can't picture.
— GSMA Mobile Economy → the truth on mobile-network reach and smartphone share, which decides your whole creative and payment approach in Africa/South Asia.
— Statcounter → real, measured browser/OS/screen share per country; settles 'do I even need to support this old Android' faster than guesswork.
— Local app-store charts + Similarweb country view → reveal the apps and sites that actually own attention, which the keyword tools can't show in thin markets.

Lesson: when volume data is missing, triangulate penetration + device + dominant-app data instead. It's slower but it's real.

Credit: DataReportal, GSMA Intelligence, and Statcounter — all free, all underused by Western buyers.