Sub-Saharan Africa’s mobile subscriptions set to rise to 930 million

WITH the next four years, mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa will rise from the current 560-million to 930-million.This is according to the latest edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report, released at Ericsson’s Woodmead offices on Monday, which revealed that, by 2019, 2.7-billion mobile subscriptions would be added to the current 6.6-billion mobile subscriptions worldwide.

Explaining the latest findings of the report, Ericsson head of sub-Saharan Africa Fredrik Jejdling said during the third quarter of the year, 25-million of the 113-million new mobile subscriptions worldwide emerged from sub-Saharan Africa, surpassed only by China with the addition of 30-million mobile subscriptions for the period.

Despite mobile penetration in sub-Saharan Africa, at 70% in the third quarter, being much lower than the global average of 92%, the region had become one of the world’s fastest growing mobile markets.

The mobile phone is the most used device among sub-Saharan African consumers, with an estimated 476-million smartphones expected to reach the market within the next four years.

Of the total sub-Saharan African mobile subscriptions, 732-million would have mobile broadband, using about 633 PB/m of data – a 17-fold growth in data traffic between 2013 and 2019, well above the ten-fold growth expected globally.

Third-generation (3G) technologies, such as WCDMA/HSPA, would carry about 65%, or 600-million, of all mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa by 2019 and 100-million would have access to long-term evolution- (LTE-) technologies, compared with the 85%, or 480-million, currently using second-generation (2G) technologies, such as GSM/EDGE, with the remainder covered by 3G technologies.

By 2019, 2G technologies would hold a share of just over 20%, complementing 3G and LTE network coverage, Jejdling said, noting that uptake of LTE in the region from 2013 onwards would be relatively slow, but steady.

This compared with North America, which by 2019, would be 85% covered by LTE networks.

In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Ghana added the greatest number of year-on-year net additions of mobile subscriptions for the third quarter.

In terms of mobile subscriptions per country, Nigeria led the way, followed by South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Tanzania.