Johannesburg - Nearly half the people in Africa have cellphones.
Together they add $150 billion (R2.16 trillion) a year to the continent’s economy.
About two in every five of those phones are probably smartphones.
“More than half a billion people across Africa are now subscribed to a mobile network, providing them not just with connectivity but a gateway to a range of other essential services in areas such as digital identity, healthcare and financial services,” said Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA, which represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide.
“The rapid move to mobile broadband networks is also unlocking new opportunities for consumers, businesses and governments, growing an ecosystem that last year added more than $150bn in value to Africa’s economy.”
Granryd was commenting on a GSMA study, “The Mobile Economy: Africa 2016”, which was published on Tuesday. The report is on the GSMA website.
The GSMA represents the interests of nearly 800 mobile operators of nearly 300 companies worldwide, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and internet companies,
The report found that by the end of last year there were 557 million unique mobile subscribers in Africa, the equivalent of 46 percent of the population. This was expected to increase to 725 million unique subscribers by 2020, or about 54 percent of the population, by then.
A unique mobile subscriber is someone who might have multiple mobile connections (SIM cards).
This makes Africa the second largest, but least penetrated, mobile market in the world, said the GSMA.
“Africa’s three largest markets – Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa – together accounted for around a third of the total subscriber base,” it added.
African mobile subscribers are rapidly migrating to mobile broadband networks and services, a result of ongoing network rollouts and the increasing availability of affordable mobile broadband devices and tariffs, it said.
Mobile broadband (3G/4G) accounted for just over a quarter of total connections by the end of last year.
Currently, there were 72 live 4G networks in 32 countries in Africa, half of them launched in the past two years.
There were 226 million smartphone connections, and this was expected to triple over the next five years. Smartphone connections are SIM cards linked to smartphones but doesn’t refer to the number of smartphones sold.
“The use of mobile technologies and services across Africa generated $153bn in economic value last year, equivalent to 6.7 percent of the region’s GDP,” said the GSMA.
Africa’s mobile ecosystem supported 3.8 million jobs last year, and this was expected to increase to 4.5 million by 2020.