Mobile Data the Core of Africa’s Telephony Growth

Mobile data subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to significantly overtake that of voice by 2019.  According to the 2014 Ericsson Mobility Report, there has been a 70 percent growth in global data traffic between the fourth quarters of 2012 and 2013, signalling a new revolution in the mobile telephony space.

“The mobile phone is not really a luxury it’s a necessity.  If we look at the last five to 10 years, in sub-Saharan Africa, we’ve seen quite a big pick up of mobile voice telephony, up until about 550 million subscriptions.  We see the total going up to 930 million,” Fredrik Jejdling, head of Ericsson in sub-Saharan Africa, advised.

He then added, “The most exciting part is that we’d like to see a tenfold in the numbers of mobile data subscriptions, and that is of course the next revolution coming a long now.  With that comes impacts on other industries, and on the consumer.”  The forecasted 930 million mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2019 are expected to be particularly driven by changing social and technological dynamics in the ICT, such as cheaper smartphones and the rising access to internet in the continent.

Jejdling added that a mere increase in mobile data penetration by 10 per cent could likely see a country’s GDP grow by about 1.3 per cent.  Jeidling also explained, “When you look down at a particular vertical, we can see that already data technology, as opposed to voice historically, is enabling for example the banking sector and financial sector to include more people through mobile banking.”

He also stated, “Mobile banking is actually the biggest and most downloaded application of all in the sub-Saharan region, and it shows a little bit again the necessity, not the luxury, of mobile broadband in this part of the world, in the sense that it includes people and it replaces the non-existing bricks and mortar industry.”

According to the report, of the 109 million new mobile subscriptions globally in the fourth quarter of 2013, Africa represented 17 million, India represented 22 million and China represented 21 million.  Ericsson expects tenfold increase in mobile subscriptions and a 20 fold growth in mobile data traffic by 2019 in Africa alone.  The rest of the world has been a forecasted 10 time growth in mobile data traffic alone, indicating Africa’s upward demand for data.

Jeidling then concluded, “Those are just big numbers, in a way. We also as an industry have to understand what it takes for that to happen. The consumer interface is largely driven by affordability.  This is a complex issue in Africa, considering that there’s a different sort of GDP per capita in different regions.”

Source: CNBC Africa