$155 BILLION

Estimated economic value added generated by mobile technologies and services in Sub-saharan Africa by 2025

the region’s population. In addition, an estimated $155 billion of economic value added will be generated by mobile technologies and services by 2025. In 2020, transactions on mobile money platforms reached $490 billion, said GSMA, illustrating the massive expected growth.

The GSMA estimates that over the period to 2025, 4G adoption in Sub-saharan Africa will double to 28 percent, compared to a global average of 57 percent. It is still early stages in the journey to 5G in Sub-saharan Africa; as of June 2021, there were seven commercial 5G networks in five markets across the region. By the end of 2025, 5G will account for just 3 percent of total mobile connections in the region.

Despite the slow progress of technology infrastructure, several e-commerce providers have emerged across the continent in recent years, serving both the domestic and global markets. In Ethiopia, for example, the opening up of the local market to foreign telecom operators has seen a promising start to the growth of e-commerce in Africa’s second most populous country.

“Like any other basic needs, technology is also becoming so much more vital,” said Abebe, adding that in order to help the local economies come closer to each other, interlinkage between telecom providers of individual countries along with their financial systems is crucial.

“This is a fortune moment to create African entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs,” he said.