Telecom
Africa’s Telecom Revenue to Hi $59Bn in 5 Years
Sub-Saharan Africa’s retail telecoms revenue will grow at a faster rate than any other region in the world over the next 5 years (6.4% CAGR over 2012–2018), but operators in the region must still look to develop new digital economy revenue streams to supplement core services.
Analysys Mason’s most-recent Sub-Saharan Africa forecasts showed the region’s telecoms market will grow faster than any other region worldwide over the next 5 years
Telecoms retail revenue reached $41 billion in 2012, and will rise to $59 billion in 2018, growing from 3% of worldwide total revenue in 2012, to 4% in 2018.
According to Analysys Mason, handset data services, mobile broadband and fixed broadband offer the strongest opportunities for revenue growth in Sub-Saharan Africa through 2018, and will help offset stagnating messaging services and declining fixed voice revenue.
The M2M market will also grow rapidly, but will represent only a small share of total revenue.
By 2018, mobile networks will account for more than 98% of voice connections and 80% of broadband connections in the region. The number of mobile broadband connections will reach 29.3 million by 2018
Mobile voice revenue growth (at a CAGR of 6.3%) will be a key driver, and is by far the largest service line in terms of revenue, reaching $39 billion annually by 2018.
Analysys Mason said that revenue growth from mobile messaging will slow to a CAGR of 1.8%, versus 14.4% annual growth during 2009–2012, while mobile broadband (mid-screen and large-screen) revenue will grow at 14.6% per year.
Mobile handset data revenue will grow faster than mid- and large-screen mobile broadband, but will still only be about one fifth of the size of mobile voice revenue in the region by 2018.
Smartphones will account for 80% of active broadband connections and 22% of handsets in the region overall, by 2018. In general, the take-up of smartphones in the region is progressing more quickly than we were forecasting earlier this year, driven by the availability of affordable handsets and consumer appetite for smartphones, which has been boosted by data services.
3G will reach 152 million active SIMs (excluding M2M) by 2018, accounting for slightly less than 20% of non-M2M SIMs.
3G take-up is clearly driven in part by fixed broadband substitution, but will also be driven by operators’ efforts to expand 3G coverage and capacity, and increasing availability of less-expensive data tariffs and affordable, data-enabled devices.
4G is still a long-term play in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is constrained by spectrum availability issues, coverage, device affordability and licensing delays.
Operators in the region that have launched LTE services include Cell C, Neotel, Orange Uganda, Telkom Mobile and Vodacom in South Africa. 4G will account for only 1.52% of the 774 million active mobile connections in Sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2018.
Despite strong interest in high-speed mobile broadband services, the 2G base in Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to increase throughout the forecast period, and will still account for the majority of SIMs (78%) in 2018. 3G and 4G will be limited to urban areas because rural populations are more price-sensitive and will continue to use basic phones.
This, as well as the high proportion of prepaid mobile users in South Africa (at 95%), must be taken into account by companies looking to develop new revenue streams from digital economy and over-the-top services.
As in other regions, operators in Sub-Saharan Africa are looking to bolster core service revenue through offering and enabling B2B and B2C digital economy services for their subscribers.
Key M2M verticals in Sub-Saharan Africa will be retail, banking and fleet management, as well as applications with socioeconomic benefits, such as m-health. M2M connections will grow from 2.8 million in 2012 to 28.9 million by the end of 2018, at a CAGR of 45%. M2M services will account for 2.9% of all mobile connections in Sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2018. However, revenue per connection is low – M2M revenue will represent less than 1% of mobile retail revenue.
Nigeria and South Africa will be the main M2M markets in the region. In South Africa, in particular, plans to roll out smart meters during the next 5 years will drive the market.
In other markets, Safaricom in Kenya has developed a mobile solution to make clean energy more accessible and affordable to rural areas, and Orange Uganda launched an M2M offering in late 2012 for fleet management, and remote monitoring and surveillance.
Over-the-top services are gaining traction in Africa as smartphone usage grows, but willingness to pay is limited, and enabling payment is also an ongoing challenge.
Mobile money continues to be an area of intense interest for the region, and for service providers, given the size of the opportunity among the unbanked.
Analysys Mason said that the success of M-Pesa has spawned a plethora of smaller mobile money and payments services, usually local, which have achieved varying levels of success, as well as larger-scale, operator-led initiatives, such as Tigo Cash.
“Operators are also turning their attention to monetising customer relationships through cross-selling non-telecoms financial products, such as insurance (for example, airtel’s and MTN’s recent airtime-paid insurance offerings in Nigeria). We expect many more examples of this type of innovation to emerge as operators look to supplement core services growth in the African market” Analysys Mason stated
MTN Foundation has been spotlighted as a model for private sector-driven healthcare development in Nigeria, following commendations at the 6th Arthur Mbanefo Lecture held at the University of Lagos, Akoka.
Themed “A Healthy Nation is a Wealthy Nation: The Role of Impact Investments and Sustainable Financing in Nigeria,” the lecture featured Dr. Tolulope Adewole, Managing Director of NSIA Advanced Medical Services Limited (MedServe), as keynote speaker.
Dr. Adewole praised the Foundation’s strategic investments, noting that MTN commits 1% of its profit after tax annually to development sectors. “They’ve invested ₦31.75 billion, reaching over 32 million Nigerians. Though only 25% went to health, it accounted for 51% of all lives impacted. That’s catalytic,” he said.
He cited MTN’s dialysis centre programme as a transformative intervention for patients with kidney disease, and highlighted community-focused initiatives like the Y’ello Doctor mobile scheme and ‘What Can We Do Together’ (WCWDT) programme, which revitalised 164 Primary Healthcare Centres, including 44 in 2024 alone.
Executive Director of MTN Foundation, Odunayo Sanya, reflected on the COVID-19 pandemic’s exposure of systemic health vulnerabilities. “When COVID hit, we realised a health emergency is also an economic and social emergency,” she said.
Sanya revealed that of the 52 PHCs remodeled in 2024, only one had clean water. “I’m not a doctor, but I know you can’t live a good life without clean water,” she added, reaffirming the Foundation’s commitment to bridging healthcare gaps in underserved communities.
Hundreds of university students across Africa are set to benefit from a new gamified learning experience on digital rights and inclusion launched by the leading pan-African non-profit organisation, Paradigm Initiative (PIN).
The Digital Rights and Inclusion Board Learning Experience (DRIBLE) is a game developed by Paradigm Initiative with support from the Open Society Foundations (OSF). The custom-designed board game provides young individuals with a fun and engaging entry point into digital rights and inclusion conversations, training sessions and storytelling tools.
The board game aims to build digital literacy, deepen understanding of online safety, and introduce young individuals to the organisation’s tools of impact. Currently being piloted in three universities: University of Lagos, Nigeria, the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) in Nairobi, Kenya and the Dakar American University of Science and Technology (DAUST) in Dakar, Senegal, it will enhance interactions and create a holistic experience.
Speaking at the event launch at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, ‘Gbenga Sesan, Paradigm Initiative’s Executive Director, said: “PIN’s vision is to reach 20 million people through our Digital Inclusion and Digital Rights interventions. From Lagos, to Dakar, to Nairobi.. we will use the vehicle of our new Digital Rights and Inclusion Board Learning Experience (DRIBLE) which entails using gamification, training, multimedia materials, tools and other interventions to connect African youth with digital opportunities and protect their digital rights.”
‘Gbenga gave the keynote address on “Digital inclusion at PIN, our Past, Present and Future” and Nnenna Paul-Ugochukwu, the organisation’s Chief Operating Officer, said the goal of the learning experience would be instrumental in raising awareness of digital rights among the youth, building their capacity to address digital rights and inclusion issues in their communities. Prof. Olunifesi Adekunle Suraj shared a goodwill message with the students and other stakeholders.
Paradigm Initiative, which has been operational since 2007, started in a tiny cybercafe in Ajegunle, Lagos, Nigeria. Today, the organisation has expanded its wings to cover six African countries; Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia and Zimbabwe, impacting the livelihoods of over 150,000 young Africans.
The launch of DRIBLE builds on the progress the organisation has made over the years in tackling the challenge of digital exclusion across Africa.
Paradigm Initiative’s tools of impact include Ripoti, a platform that enables individuals to report digital rights violations, Ayeta, a platform that provides digital security resources for stakeholders, more so human rights activists, defenders, journalists and other vulnerable groups, and the organisation’s latest short film, Whispers in the Wires.
Targeted at students, PIN rolled out a Campus Tour in the three universities on the continent starting July 15th, 2025.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has intensified its crackdown on fake accounts and spam, announcing it removed over 10 million fake profiles and roughly 500,000 spam accounts in the first half of 2025.
The sweeping purge is part of Meta’s broader effort to combat impersonation, fake engagement, and content duplication, aiming to elevate authentic creators and improve the quality of content across its platforms.
In a blog post, Meta said: “We’re making progress. In the first half of 2025, we took action on around 500,000 accounts engaged in spammy behaviour or fake engagement. We also removed about 10 million profiles impersonating large content producers.”
Meta stressed that accounts which primarily repost or recycle content without meaningful edits will face penalties such as reduced reach and the loss of monetisation tools.
The company also warned that repeatedly sharing unoriginal content — whether videos, photos, or text — undermines the platform’s integrity by crowding out genuine voices and making it harder for new creators to grow.
To support authentic creators, Meta is rolling out new tools that automatically trace reposted content back to its original source. The company says this will help ensure rightful credit and give higher visibility to original posts.
“Pages and profiles that post mostly original content tend to enjoy wider distribution across Facebook. Simply stitching clips together or adding a watermark will no longer count as meaningful editing. Content that provides real value and tells an authentic story is likely to perform better,” Meta explained.
Creators are also being cautioned against uploading content that includes watermarks from other platforms. Such posts could see their reach restricted or lose monetisation privileges altogether.
As part of its latest update, Meta introduced post-level insights on the Professional Dashboard, allowing creators to monitor how individual posts perform. They can also check their Support Home screen to see if their content or earnings are facing restrictions.
In a parallel development, Google’s YouTube updated its monetisation guidelines, stating that content deemed mass-produced or excessively repetitive will no longer qualify for ad revenue. The announcement initially sparked concern among creators, who feared it was a blanket ban on AI-generated content. YouTube later clarified:
“We welcome creators using AI tools to enhance their storytelling, and channels that use AI in their content remain eligible to monetise.”
Both tech giants say these new policies are aimed at raising content standards and safeguarding genuine creators in a crowded and rapidly evolving digital landscape.
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