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Cape Town - An international report says that Sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growth area for mobile subscribers.
According to the GSMA Mobile Economy 2014: Sub-Saharan Africa, released on Thursday, unique mobile subscribers in the region are set to pass the half billion mark by 2020.
"The mobile industry has transformed the lives of millions of people across Sub-Saharan Africa, providing not just connectivity but also an essential gateway to a wide range of healthcare, education and financial services," said Anne Bouverot, director general of the GSMA.
The largest markets for mobile subscribers mirror that of the regional economies with Nigeria first, followed by South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.
Africa has emerged as the growth engine of mobile penetration as the population adopts mobile technology, often skipping computers.
Surging data demand
"As today's report shows, millions of additional citizens in the region will become mobile subscribers over the next six years, with many being able to access the internet for the first time via low-cost smartphones and mobile broadband networks," said Bouverot.
The report shows that 3G deployments continue to accelerate, though off a relatively low base.
"The region is seeing a rapid migration to mobile broadband networks; 3G accounted for only 17% of total connections in June 2014, but is forecast to account for more than half of the total by 2020 as local operators deploy new mobile broadband networks and smartphones become more affordable," said the GSMA.
High speed mobile broadband is critical for economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. (Duncan Alfreds, Fin24)
Demand for mobile data services is high in the region and expected to eclipse cable broadband connections.
According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, mobile broadband users will grow exponentially between 2014 and 2018, far eclipsing ADSL users.
"From 2013 to 2018, Cisco anticipates that mobile traffic growth will be double fixed traffic growth in South Africa and that there will be 40 million mobile users by 2018, up from 38 million in 2013," the company said.
According to data from Ericsson's Mobile Data Traffic Growth report for 2013 to 2019, the region's data appetite is huge and expected to grow at 65% to 2019 and beyond.
Significant infrastructure investment
Put into perspective, mobile data in the region was at 37 000 terabytes (TB) per month in 2013, and that will jump to 76 000TB by the end of 2014, on its way to a mammoth 764 000TB by the end of 2019.
To meet this demand, the GSMA said that mobile operators have made significant infrastructure investments.
"Operators in the region invested more than $45bn over the last six years (2008 to 2013) to expand coverage and increase network capacity. Capital expenditure over the next seven years (2014 to 2020) is forecast to total around $97bn as operators accelerate investments in order to meet rising demand for mobile data services."
Bouverot cautioned that all role players had an obligation to ensure that mobile subscriptions remained accessible.
"Operators and other ecosystem players, as well as governments and regulators, all have a role to play in ensuring that affordable mobile services can be extended across the region."
Watch this video where Anne Bouverot, director general of the GSMA explains the slow rollout of high speed LTE networks.
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