Africa now has 500m unique mobile users

Africa now has 500m unique mobile users

Africa has surpassed half a billion unique mobile users, the GSMA, an industry body, said on Tuesday.

According to the GSMA’s newly released “The Mobile Economy: Africa 2016” report, the mobile ecosystem added an estimated US$150bn in value to Africa’s economy.

The report said there were 557m unique mobile subscribers across Africa at the end of 2015, equivalent to 46% of the continent’s population, making Africa the second largest — but least penetrated — mobile market in the world.

Africa’s three largest markets — Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa — together accounted for around a third of the total subscriber base.

The number of unique mobile subscribers is forecast to reach 725m by 2020, accounting for 54% of the expected population by this point, the GSMA said.

The association said African mobile subscribers are migrating rapidly to mobile broadband networks and services, a result of ongoing network roll-outs and the increasing availability of affordable mobile broadband devices and tariffs.

“Mobile broadband (3G/4G) accounted for just over a quarter of total connections at the end of 2015, but is expected to account for almost two-thirds by 2020,” the GSMA said.

“By mid-2016, there were 72 live 4G networks in 32 countries across Africa, half of which have been launched in the last two years.”

The number of smartphone connections in Africa is forecast to more than triple over the next five years, rising from 226m in 2015 to 720m by 2020.

Meanwhile, the report said the use of mobile technologies and services across Africa generated $153bn in economic value last year, equivalent to 6,7% of the region’s GDP.

This contribution is expected to increase to $214bn by 2020 (7,6% of expected GDP) as countries in Africa continue to benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by increased take-up of mobile services.

Africa’s mobile ecosystem supported 3,8m jobs in 2015 and made a $17bn contribution to the public sector via general taxation, the GSMA added. “The number of jobs supported is forecast to rise to 4,5m by 2020, while the tax contribution is expected to increase to $20,5bn.

The GSMA’s full report is available on its website.