Nigeria missing among top mobile subscription gladiators
as customers head southward on back of sim registration ban
Over the last few quarters, mobile subscriptions in Africa have continued to show impressive growth. Recent Ericsson Mobility report shows that mobile subscriptions in the region accounted for more than 20 percent of the global net additions that were recorded during the first quarter of 2021.
But while the continent continues to witness growth in the number of mobile subscribers, Nigeria has continued to dip in this respect since December when sales of sim cards was banned.
Report by the multinational company shows that South Africa emerged the country with the third-highest net additions of mobile subscribers globally after adding about 2 million new mobile subscriptions following India (26 million) and China (6 million) while the giant of Africa went missing from the top list as it continues to lose subscribers. Data by NCC shows that despite the resumption of sim registration, Nigeria lost 3.7 million subscribers in April compared to the 3.65 million subscribers lost in March during the ban.
During the first quarter of 2021, total mobile broadband subscriptions reached around 8 billion. According to the global report, mobile broadband will likely push to 8.8 billion by the end of 2026 while unique mobile subscribers will grow from a total of 5.9 billion in Q1 2021 to 6.5 billion at the end of 2026 driven by the rise of smartphone penetration and subscriptions associated with smartphone accounts.
5G network coverage on the rise
In spite of uncertainty and economic instability caused by COVID-19, the report shows that more than 160 service providers have launched commercial 5G services causing an uptick in 5G uptake.
According to the data, 5G subscriptions with a 5G-capable device grew by 70 million during the first quarter, to reach around 290 million while 4G subscriptions on the other hand increased by approximately 100 million, exceeding 4.6 billion and equating 58 percent of all mobile subscriptions.
The growth in 5G network is widely attributed to China’s earlier engagement with 5G compared to 4G and the timely availability of devices from several vendors;
Apply Samsung and some other smartphone makers already have 5G enabled devices.
Similarly, the addition of gaming passes, packages sold as addons to regular data subscriptions that are appealing to gamers is a contributing factor promoting 5G and low-latency experiences.
Estimating 5G growth projection using the current growth rate, Ericsson projects that there will be close to 580 million 5G subscriptions by the end of 202 and 3.5 billion globally by 202 while 4G is expected to reach it peak during the year at 4.8 billio subscriptions before declinin to around 3.9 billion subscrip tions by the end of 2026 as mor subscribers vacates to 5G. Th report however added that 4G wil remain the dominant mobile ac cess technology by subscriptio over the next 5 years.
While North East Asia has th highest 5G subscription pen etration and is followed by Nort America, Gulf Cooperation Coun cil countries and Western Europe North America is projected t have the highest share of 5 subscriptions of all regions at 8 percent by 2026.
Meanwhile, Africa is yet to se significant 5G presences as th region was marked as 0 using it ranking parameters even thoug there have been a few test-ru and launches.
However, in the projectio of Ericsson, 5G subscription in sub-Saharan Africa will hit percent in 2026 while the Middl East and North Africa region wil grow by 15 percent during th same period driven by uptick i mobile broadband subscription by growing population with in creasing digital skills and mor affordable smartphones.