A Niga © ria is the country with the most mobile subscriptions in Africa, with an increase of three million subscriptions in the first quarter of 2018, according to the latest report from Ericsson.
According to the report, there has been an increase of 98 million mobile subscribers worldwide and the number of mobile subscribers exceeds the size of the population in many countries (including Nigeria) mainly because of inactive signatures, multiple device ownership or optimization of signatures for different types of calls.
India was the largest contributor to this increase, as it added 43 million new mobile subscribers, while Nigeria was the fastest growing African country, the 5th highest in the world, adding 3 million new mobile subscriptions. Other countries that showed significant increases were China (24 million), Indonesia (10 million) and Pakistan (5 million).
Ericsson expects growth in the Sub-Saharan Africa region to reach 930 million subscriptions by 2023, which equates to a compound annual growth rate of 5%, while smartphone subscriptions are expected to reach the 750 million mark in the same period.
The report anticipates that 4G will overtake GSM as the largest access technology in number of subscriptions in 2018. The company also estimates that by 2023 there will be 3,5 billion IOT (Internet of Things) connections in the world and 1 billion connections. 5G subscriptions, which will represent about 20% of mobile data traffic.
In Africa where mobile broadband penetration is currently lower than in other regions, the number of mobile broadband subscriptions is expected to increase significantly. The determining factors include a growing young population and more accessible smartphones.
