Africa’s Mobile Market Predicted to Hit $234 Billion By 2020

(photo) Base Station

Africa’s booming mobile phone market has been forecast to further increase in size from a value of $60 billion in 2013 to $234 billion by 2020, according to recent study.

US based research firm, Manifest Mind LLC, forecasts that the African mobile market is to grow at an annual rate of 21.27 per cent from 2013 to 2020 to reach the $234 billion target.
Africa’s telecoms sector growth has surged in the last ten years as the continent has overtaken Europe and Latin America to become the second biggest market in the world for handsets after Asia, according to global mobile phone body, the GSMA.

Figures from the GSMA also indicate that from 2007 to 2012 mobile connections in Africa, more than doubled from 283 million to 735 million.

In 2005, the number of mobile connections in Africa amounted to just 15 per cent of the continent’s total population, according to the GSMA, but by 2012, the percentage jumped to 72 per cent of Africa’s estimated one billion population.