The AfricaCom 2013 kicked off today in Cape Town, South Africa. This year’s theme is “Building Africa’s Digital Economy”.
The day started in the morning at 9.00a.m. with Nick Jotischky, a Principal Analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media. Nick shared some interesting statistics about a recent survey that Informa conducted to assess the outlook of Africa’s telecoms market
The survey considered 347 respondents for this survey. 73% of the respondents was based in Africa while 10% was from Middle East, 8% from Europe, 5% for Asia Pacific and 4% from Americas . Some of the highlights from the survey are as follows:
- Over 40% of telecoms executives surveyed are confident about the prospects for the African telecoms industry over the next few years
- However, one in three believes that the provision of telecoms services to rural markets in Africa remain inadequate and the suggestion is that mush of the mass market remains largely ignored.
- Rise in digital service usage will drive Africa’s mobile data business to be worth US$23 billion in 2018
- One in three respondents believe the cheapest smartphones on the market are still too expensive for most Africans
- 37% call for Africa’s mobile operators to subsidise smartphones and other data devices if they really want to reach the mass market.
- The introduction of submarine cables may have brought down prices for international capacity but this has no impact on those countries that are landlocked, and where international capacity remains scarce and therefore more expensive.
Jotischky comments that until now the challenge for operators has been one of ensuring connectivity for a growing number of consumers. But now the challenge has changed: It is about addressing new competition, serving evolving consumer needs and ensuring an excellent level of service – and all this at a time when margins are coming under intense levels of scrutiny.
