Apart from retaining the position of the largest mobile market in Africa in terms of subscriptions, with 150.22 million mobile subscriptions at end-2Q 2016, the Ovum Africa Market Outlook has noted that it will take time for any other African nation to beat Nigeria in the feat due to the population and market size.
The report said Nigeria moved 150.22 million up from 147.94 million a year earlier followed by Egypt, South Africa, Algeria, and Morocco, according to the Ovum Africa Market Outlook.
Though coming down from a peak of 62.81 million at end-2Q15, largely as a result of disconnections made to comply with SIM registration requirements, MTN Nigeria is the largest operator both in Nigeria and on the continent with 58.98 million subscriptions at end-2Q16.
The mobile network operator is followed by Ethiopia’s Ethio Telecom (45.99m), Vodafone Egypt (39.04m) and Vodacom South Africa (37.63m). Others are Globacom Nigeria, Orange Egypt and Airtel Nigeria.
The number of mobile subscriptions in Africa is expected to reach 1.02 billion at the end of 2016, despite slow growth in the continent’s mobile market,
Research put the current number of mobile subscriptions as at end-2Q 2016 at 962.29 million, based on a slow increase of 9.91% over the year to end-2014 and by 7.63% over the year to end-2015.
The slow growth is attributed to macroeconomic difficulties and regulatory issues such as SIM registration drives in a number of countries that held back growth in the market in the first half of 2016.
The research adds that by the end of 2021, mobile subscriptions on the continent would have reached the 1.33 billion mark of which 3G connections will account for 64.9% and LTE for 11.8%.
This will create a total mobile revenue rise from US$55.55bn in 2015 to US$69.67bn in 2021 at a CAGR of 3.8%, though mobile voice revenue on the continent will decline from US$43.26bn in 2015 to US$36.37bn in 2021.
Non-SMS mobile data revenue is expected to grow strongly from US$6.40bn in 2015 to US$27.56bn in 2021, at a CAGR of 27.6% driven by the rollout of 3G and 4G networks, the increasing affordability of smartphones, and changing customer behavior.
