Mobile data use rises in Nigeria, SA, others amid slow broadband speeds

Mobile data connections and services continue to grow strongly in countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya amongst others, but the continent still lags behind most of the world in terms of high-speed broadband connectivity, according to a new report by research firm Ovum. Industry analysts are of the view that the rise of social media, content-rich apps and video accessed from a new range of cheaper smartphones has prompted the rise in mobile data use.

Bharti Airtel recently reported revenue rise in Africa. The company’s reported revenues for its fiscal second quarter rose 7.1 percent year-on-year to INR 228.4 billion. According to the firm, growth was driven by a 66.7 percent increase in mobile data revenues to INR 25.4 billion. “The rise of cheap smartphones will allow vast portions of the population – from middle classes in cities to small businesses in rural areas – access to mobile broadband”, Fredrik Jejdling, regional head of Ericsson Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

However, mobile broadband connections in Africa are set to rise from 96 million in 2013 to 950 million to cover 77.3 percent of all mobile subscriptions in the continent by the end of 2019. The number of mobile subscriptions is growing faster in Africa than in any other major region, with 9.8 percent year-on-year growth at the end of 2013, higher compared to the global growth rate of 6.3 percent. Ovum said it expects mobile subscriptions in the continent to reach one billion in 2016, totalling 1.23 billion in five years’ time. “But with the rate of growth in mobile subscriptions slowing – the number of mobile subscriptions in Africa will increase by only about 5 percent year-on-year in 2019 – the more significant development within Africa’s mobile market is the growth in mobile data connections and services,” said Matthew Reed, practice leader for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Ovum. While growth in mobile use has been remarkably strong in recent years, fixed broadband penetration in Africa remains very low at 5.2 percent.

“Despite the growth in mobile data connectivity on the continent, Africa is ranked second-to-last among world regions in terms of its broadband development,” Reed said. According to Ovum’s Broadband Development Index, which tracks the take-up of high-speed fixed and mobile broadband services in 191 countries, Africa scored 226 out of 1,000 in 2014.

This is just ahead of Central and Southern Asia (219 of 1,000), but far behind leading regions North America (633) and Western Europe (433). Within SSA and only taking into account countries with more than three million people, the best performers of the index were SA, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Nigeria, with scores of 262, 244, 241, 227 and 227 (227 for both Uganda and Nigeria) respectively. On global scale, South Africa ranks 103rd of the 191 countries in total. “Ovum’s data shows that despite the remarkable advances made by Africa’s telecoms sector, the continent remains behind the rest of the world in terms of its adoption of fast broadband services.

“Bridging that digital divide should be a high priority for African governments, regulators and the industry, because of the economic, social and commercial benefits that it could bring,” said Reed.Meanwhile, broadband and network solutions provider Sandvine has revealed the results of its research into African internet usage trends.

The data, collected as part of the company’s Global Internet Phenomena Program, showed significant differences in mobile broadband use in Africa compared to Europe and North America. According to the report, WhatsApp is the leading third party messaging application in Africa, accounting for 7 percent of total traffic. In comparison, the app apparently only accounts for less than 2 percent of all such traffic in Europe and North America. Streaming video via mobile broadband only accounts for just over 6 percent of downstream traffic, which is much lower than in Europe and North America where it comes to over 30 percent.

Ben Uzor, with wire reports