Skip to main content

African Mobile Market grows 550% in 5 years

Source: 3G4G wireless

Africans are buying mobile phones at a world record rate, with take-up soaring by 550% in five years, research shows.

"The mobile phone revolution continues," says a UN report charting the phenomenon that has transformed commerce, healthcare and social lives across the planet. Mobile subscriptions in Africa rose from 54m to almost 350m between 2003 and 2008, the quickest growth in the world. The global total reached 4bn at the end of last year and, although growth was down on the previous year, it remained close to 20%.

On average there are now 60 mobile subscriptions for every 100 people in the world. In developing countries, the figure stands at 48 – more than eight times the level of penetration in 2000.

In Africa, average penetration stands at more than a third of the population, and in north Africa it is almost two-thirds. Gabon, the Seychelles and South Africa now boast almost 100% penetration. Only five African countries – Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia – still have a penetration of less than 10 per 100 inhabitants.



Read full article...


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stock Market Infographic: July 29, 2025 Jul 30, 7:58 AM

Market Performance Analysis - July 29, 2025 Market Performance Analysis July 29, 2025 Nifty 50 Daily Snapshot Closing Value 24,821.10 Gain/Loss +140.2 (+0.57%) Intraday Swing 248.55 Points Market Breadth The broad-based market rally is evident with nearly twice as many stocks advancing as declining, signaling strong investor confidence across the board. ...

Eran Gorev to Join Alvarion® as president and Chief Executive Officer

Tel Aviv, Israel, September 2, 2009 — Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ:ALVR), the world’s leading provider of WiMAX™ and wireless broadband solutions, today announced that its Board of Directors has named Eran Gorev to succeed Tzvika Friedman as president and Chief Executive Officer. The transition will take place during the fourth quarter, with Mr. Gorev assuming full day-to-day responsibility in December. “We are pleased to welcome this highly-regarded executive to the company,” said Anthony Maher, Chairman. “Eran Gorev brings an impressive track record of success in world-class organizations including NICE Systems, Amdocs, and Digital Equipment Corporation. His global experience, particularly in customer-facing roles with Tier 1 carriers, leading enterprises and governments, and strong corporate leadership skills are ideally suited to build on the achievements of Tzvika and the entire Alvarion team.”

Qualcomm Takes Lead as 4G Patent Holder

Qualcomm looks set to be the leading patent holder in 4G wireless communications after recording 24% of ETSI declarations surrounding LTE, as well as 16% of the 26,000 patents that have potential relevance to 4G technologies generally, including WiMAX. Other notable players in the LTE field include Interdigital (18%), Huawei (10%), LG (9%), Nokia (9%) and Samsung (7%). When considering the whole 4G environment Samsung takes second spot with 12% of all patent filings, and Nokia takes third with 6%. Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer at ABI Research, comments, “Innovation in this space continues unabated. Given that these declarations reflect work completed 18 months ago, it is very feasible that this landscape could shift again during the coming two years as we see the 4G market ramp up.” He goes on to add that, “We see no major reason why the licensing situation in 4G will be significantly different from that for 3G. There is still a big list of ‘haves’ but also a large list of ‘...