Market Overview
West African Telecommunications Market Overview
Informa forecasts the West & Central Africa market to reach 158 million mobile subscriptions by 2012, a 78% growth.
Key factors to the sub-region’s growth lie in its still low penetration level, 24% in December 2007, compared to an average of 30% across Africa. Among the countries offering the highest growth potential are Nigeria and DR Congo. Penetrated at 33%, Nigeria’s potential resides in its huge population (about 136 million), its emerging economy and a converged licensing framework enabling operators to provide a wide range of telecommunication services. In 4Q07, Nigeria became Africa’s largest mobile market (overtaking South Africa), with 41.5 million subscriptions. DR Congo is the second largest mobile market in West and Central Africa and accounted for 8% of the subscriptions. Yet, it is among the fi ve least penetrated markets in the sub-region, with an 11% rate in 4Q07.
The voice demand is yet to be fulfi lled, but operators in the region are now addressing the nascent data segment, fuelled by a high demand in internet/broadband access. This leads to investors such as MTN Group or Telkom South Africa, acquiring existing ISPs and most operators turning to WCDMA, CDMA or WiMax technologies, while strong fi xed players such as Cote d’Ivoire Telecom or Sonatel (Senegal) are also investing in ADSL. In 2007, CDMA networks represented 48% of the new mobile networks launched in Africa, compared to 28% for GSM and 24% for WCDMA.
West & Central Africa Subscriptions
