26 percent of the population has a mobile internet service in 2016.
“Sub-Saharan Africa will be a key engine of subscriber growth for the world’s mobile industry over the next few years as we connect millions of previously unconnected men, women and young people across the continent,” said Mats Granryd, director general of GSMA.
Subscriber growth is expected to be concentrated in markets such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania, which together will account for half of the 115 million new subscribers expected in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2020.
Around 270 million people in the region now access the internet through mobile devices, while the number of registered mobile money accounts has reached 280 million.
Mobile technologies and services generated $110 billion of economic value in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2016, equivalent to 7.7 percent of regional GDP – a figure expected to grow to $142 billion (8.6 per cent of GDP) by 2020.
The mobile ecosystem directly and indirectly supported approximately 3.5 million jobs in the region last year, and made a $13 billion contribution to the public sector in the form of taxation.
Local mobile operators have invested $37 billion in their networks over the past five years, mainly to deploy new 3G/4G mobile broadband networks.
About a third of mobile connections were running on mobile broadband networks in 2016 will increase to 60 percent by 2020.
Mobile network operators’ (MNOs) contribution to government tax revenues outweighs their size in the economy. In the DRC, telecom sector revenues accounted for 3 percent of GDP in 2015 while mobile tax payments represented more than 17 percent of government tax revenues.