Telecom
Nigeria, Egypt Others Drive Africa’s Mobile Commerce Boom
Mobile is driving Africa’s digital economy, with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa leading the continent’s mobile commerce boom.
This is one of the findings highlighted in the white paper titled: “Towards a flourishing digital economy for all – a spotlight on Africa”, produced by the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT), in partnership with the GSM Association’s Mobile World Live team.
Launched on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress 2022, the research explores the progress made in building Africa’s mobile-driven digital economy.
It also considers specific obstacles in the African mobile commerce market, including unbanked customers, the lack of reliable identity credentials and last mile delivery issues.
Speaking during the launch of the research paper, Dr Mike Short, chief scientific adviser to the UK’s DIT, stated Africa is a mobile-first continent in every aspect of digital.
For the DIT, the definition of e-commerce stretches into mobile commerce, and most of the emphasis of the report is on mobile commerce, explained Short.
“Our report triggers a much-needed discussion on how to advance the mobile commerce revolution in Africa, which will in the long-term lead to mutually beneficial digital trade between the continent and its trading partners, including the UK.”
On a global scale, the world of e-commerce is forecast to reach $7.4 trillion in revenue by 2025, Short told the audience at the UK DIT-hosted mobile commerce thought-leadership breakfast.
“These are huge growth rates by anybody’s estimation, but the share that’s attributed to Africa is $180 billion, and there is a lot of room to grow given it’s such a burgeoning continent.”
UK minister for exports Mike Freer, who also attended the event, concurred that the digital economy across Africa is fundamentally mobile.
He noted that users are mobile first, adding that mobile commerce has already created successful domestic-owned businesses across the continent.
“The continent will seize the opportunities that lie ahead and strive for economic empowerment. Digital trade, particularly mobile commerce, will be at the heart of this growth. By 2050, half of the global trade is expected to be digital.
“In the UK, we are champions of digital trade. Our government supports the opportunities to trade online; we’re helping global investors to supercharge the digital economy.
“Across economies and societies, the UK is committed to standing side-by-side with Africa to support growth in the years ahead,” Freer stated.
According to the white paper, e-commerce is booming across Africa, with Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa making notable progress.
“For example, Nigeria is home to a thriving content production sector (Nollywood, etc), which is driving a strong market for digital products.
“Kenya’s market has been shaped by the success of its mobile money platforms. Kenyans now use M-Pesa and others to make cashless payments at retail, pay utility bills, and buy insurance and savings products.
“South Africa is different again. It has a much higher percentage of banked consumers, which has reduced the need for mobile money platforms. Its MNOs [mobile network operators] are also playing a key role in the evolution of its digital economy.”
On the issue of challenges in advancing mobile commerce on the continent, the report notes digital infrastructure and the issue of identity among the most notable obstacles.
It states that a thriving digital economy requires a strong base of connectivity, customer identity and last mile delivery.
Short explained that 58% of Africa’s population is covered by 4G – it’s not yet a 5G world. In some rural areas, internet usage is as low as 26%. Furthermore, those with feature phones won’t get a suitable mobile commerce experience.
The report highlights that for most Africans, the mobile internet is the internet. “E-commerce marketplace Jumia, which has 7.3 million active customers across Africa, says 75% of its customers use smartphones to shop on its platform.
“On a positive note, Africa’s mobile-centric infrastructure means it is also unencumbered by many of the legacy technologies that slow progress in the rest of the world. It doesn’t have the ageing infrastructure of Europe or the US.
“Because it is mobile-first, it can build infrastructure from scratch to facilitate wireless smartphone-oriented service.”
According to the report, in the world of physical commerce, especially in a cash economy, identity is not really a barrier to making a purchase. When commerce goes digital, things change.
“In developed countries, digital ID generally centres on a combination of bank card, phone, address, e-mail and so on,” it states. “But in Africa, many of these elements are unavailable.
“It is estimated that 29% of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa have no way of identifying themselves. The percentage is much higher among women, youth and the very poor.”
However, there are efforts to address this challenge, with many African countries trialling digital ID programmes that are robust and workable despite the absence of bank accounts and even postal addresses.
For example, Egypt was the first nation to launch a national ID programme using vein biometrics. Kenya’s answer is to give every person in the country a unique “Huduma Namba” – Swahili for ‘service number’ – which will allow them access to all government services.
The Nigerian government launched a national identity card in 2015. It contains a chip that securely holds the national identification number, address, name and other details. It also supports fingerprint recognition. Most important for digital commerce, the card gives previously unbanked Nigerians a tool for payments.
Many African companies and state bodies have adopted online addressing system and mobile app, what3words.
In 2020, Vodacom South Africa zero-rated what3words for its 43 million subscribers. Meanwhile, Zulzi, the on-demand grocery delivery company in South Africa, has integrated what3words into its delivery process.
Short stated: “We recognise that things like addresses are not as uniformly used in some parts of Africa as in other parts of the world.
“The whole area of identity management is a key enabler for Africa’s mobile commerce. It’s not just about networks, it’s not just about smartphones; the identity and the addresses are needed to participate in a thriving digital economy.”
Users of satellite internet service provider Starlink in Nigeria are being required to complete a biometric Know Your Customer (KYC) process as a precondition to continue enjoying their services, according to .biometricupdate.
According to local reports, more than 66,000 Starlink subscribers in the country had a December 31 ultimatum from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to complete the biometric verification or have their connection discontinued.
The process essentially entails linking a Starlkink account with the subscriber’s national digital ID.
The NCC, which is Nigeria’s telecoms industry regulator, is said to have first issued the directive in August last year, setting a three-month deadline which was to elapse on November 19, TechCabal reports.
The body however later extended it to December 31 after consultations with industry stakeholders. The internet account-NIN linkage, the NCC said, is to enhance identity verification and strengthen security within the country’s telecoms space.
Just a few days to the December 31 deadline, Starlink’s Nigeria office sent an email to its subscribers reminding them of the KYC requirement, and warned that all those who fail to comply would be disconnected.
And that once disconnected, reconnection would depend on network capacity in the concerned area.
The service provider said in its email that the process takes less than two minutes and users can complete it by logging in to their account via an app.
One user, quoted by TechCabal, said one needs to upload their selfie biometrics, provide their national identification number (NIN) and then give their consent for the account to be linked to their ID information.
Starlink’s internet service is present in about 155 countries with nine million users, as of 2025. Its growth in Nigeria is said to be rapid, making it the second largest internet service provider in the country, according to The Traffic.
Biometric identification for Starlink subscribers could become a continent-wide trend given that some countries have expressed reservations in opening up their internet space to the company over security concerns.
There’ve been fears that jihadists in countries like Mali and Nigeria may have exploited Starlink terminals to coordinate terror operations, and cybersecurity experts have also warned of risks related to weak regulation, digital sovereignty and data breaches.
The requirement for Starlink internet users to have their accounts linked with the NIN is similar to the SIM-NIN linkage policy which the Nigerian government battled to implement for many years, with many deadline extensions.
In October last year, the NCC, which is was at the forefront of the policy implementation, announced that all active SIM cards across all network providers had complied with the directive which was issued in 2020.
The idea, the federal government argued, was to strengthen security and curb criminality such as kidnappings which are aided and abetted by improperly identified mobile phone numbers.
Mr. Kashifu Inuwa, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has urged Northern Nigeria to pivot urgently from traditional commerce to an innovation-driven digital economy for sustainable growth.
NITDA
Inuwa issued the call at the Future Map Foundation Roundtable 1.0 (North-West Edition) in Kano, attributing the region’s sluggish digital adoption not to talent deficits but to the lack of deliberate, coordinated strategies.
He stressed deeper collaboration across academia, private sector players, entrepreneurs, and government, positioning the private sector as the primary innovation engine while government supplies robust policies and an enabling ecosystem.
Inuwa advocated for people-focused, locally tailored innovations that tackle regional challenges head-on, enabling global competitiveness by transitioning from mere technology users to creators of homegrown solutions.
The roundtable convened policymakers, tech founders, and ecosystem stakeholders to forge a comprehensive roadmap for North-West digital transformation, yielding firm commitments to bolster regional innovation policies and public-private synergies.
Inuwa’s push dovetails seamlessly with the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Agenda, which sets an ambitious target of 95 per cent nationwide digital literacy by 2030, fostering inclusive economic empowerment.
Participants hailed the forum as a pivotal step toward unlocking Northern Nigeria’s tech potential, with NITDA poised to lead implementation through strategic interventions and partnerships.
Samsung Electronics plans to double this year the number of its mobile devices with “Galaxy AI” features largely powered by Google’s Gemini, its co-CEO said, which would give the U.S. firm an edge over rivals as the global race in artificial intelligence heats up.
The South Korean company, which had rolled out Gemini-backed AI features to about 400 million mobile products, including smartphones and tablets, by last year, plans to boost that figure to 800 million in 2026.
“We will apply AI to all products, all functions, and all services as quickly as possible,” T M Roh told Reuters in his first interview since becoming Samsung Electronics co-CEO in November.
The plan by the world’s largest backer of Google’s Android mobile platform is set to give a major boost to its developer Google, which is locked in a race with OpenAI and others to attract more consumer users to their AI model.
Samsung seeks to reclaim its lost crown from Apple in the smartphone market and fend off competition from Chinese rivals not only in mobile telephones, but televisions and home appliances, all overseen by Roh.
It will offer integrated AI services across consumer products to widen its lead over Apple in such features, though the latter was set to be the top smartphone maker last year, according to market researcher Counterpoint.
AI Race
Alphabet’s Google launched the latest version of Gemini in November, highlighting Gemini 3’s lead on several popular industry measures of AI model performance.
In response to Gemini 3, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly issued an internal “code red,” pausing non-core projects and redirecting teams to accelerate development. The ChatGPT maker launched its GPT-5.2 AI model a few weeks later.
Roh expects the adoption of AI to accelerate, as Samsung’s surveys on awareness of its Galaxy AI brand jumped to a level of 80% from about 30% in just one year.
“Even though the AI technology might seem a bit doubtful right now, within six months to a year, these technologies will become more widespread,” he said.
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