Africa’s Telecom Revenue to Hi $59Bn in 5 Years

Sub-Saharan Africa's retail telecoms revenue will grow at a faster rate than any other region in the world over the next 5 years (6.4% CAGR over 2012–2018), but operators in the region must still look to develop new digital economy revenue streams to supplement core services.

Analysys Mason's most-recent Sub-Saharan Africa forecasts showed the region's telecoms market will grow faster than any other region worldwide over the next 5 years

Telecoms retail revenue reached $41 billion in 2012, and will rise to $59 billion in 2018, growing from 3% of worldwide total revenue in 2012, to 4% in 2018.

According to Analysys Mason, handset data services, mobile broadband and fixed broadband offer the strongest opportunities for revenue growth in Sub-Saharan Africa through 2018, and will help offset stagnating messaging services and declining fixed voice revenue.

 The M2M market will also grow rapidly, but will represent only a small share of total revenue.

By 2018, mobile networks will account for more than 98% of voice connections and 80% of broadband connections in the region. The number of mobile broadband connections will reach 29.3 million by 2018

Mobile voice revenue growth (at a CAGR of 6.3%) will be a key driver, and is by far the largest service line in terms of revenue, reaching $39 billion annually by 2018.

Analysys Mason said that revenue growth from mobile messaging will slow to a CAGR of 1.8%, versus 14.4% annual growth during 2009–2012, while mobile broadband (mid-screen and large-screen) revenue will grow at 14.6% per year.

Mobile handset data revenue will grow faster than mid- and large-screen mobile broadband, but will still only be about one fifth of the size of mobile voice revenue in the region by 2018.

Smartphones will account for 80% of active broadband connections and 22% of handsets in the region overall, by 2018. In general, the take-up of smartphones in the region is progressing more quickly than we were forecasting earlier this year, driven by the availability of affordable handsets and consumer appetite for smartphones, which has been boosted by data services.

3G will reach 152 million active SIMs (excluding M2M) by 2018, accounting for slightly less than 20% of non-M2M SIMs.

3G take-up is clearly driven in part by fixed broadband substitution, but will also be driven by operators' efforts to expand 3G coverage and capacity, and increasing availability of less-expensive data tariffs and affordable, data-enabled devices.

4G is still a long-term play in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is constrained by spectrum availability issues, coverage, device affordability and licensing delays.

Operators in the region that have launched LTE services include Cell C, Neotel, Orange Uganda, Telkom Mobile and Vodacom in South Africa. 4G will account for only 1.52% of the 774 million active mobile connections in Sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2018.

Despite strong interest in high-speed mobile broadband services, the 2G base in Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to increase throughout the forecast period, and will still account for the majority of SIMs (78%) in 2018. 3G and 4G will be limited to urban areas because rural populations are more price-sensitive and will continue to use basic phones.

This, as well as the high proportion of prepaid mobile users in South Africa (at 95%), must be taken into account by companies looking to develop new revenue streams from digital economy and over-the-top services.

As in other regions, operators in Sub-Saharan Africa are looking to bolster core service revenue through offering and enabling B2B and B2C digital economy services for their subscribers.

Key M2M verticals in Sub-Saharan Africa will be retail, banking and fleet management, as well as applications with socioeconomic benefits, such as m-health. M2M connections will grow from 2.8 million in 2012 to 28.9 million by the end of 2018, at a CAGR of 45%. M2M services will account for 2.9% of all mobile connections in Sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2018. However, revenue per connection is low – M2M revenue will represent less than 1% of mobile retail revenue.

Nigeria and South Africa will be the main M2M markets in the region. In South Africa, in particular, plans to roll out smart meters during the next 5 years will drive the market.

In other markets, Safaricom in Kenya has developed a mobile solution to make clean energy more accessible and affordable to rural areas, and Orange Uganda launched an M2M offering in late 2012 for fleet management, and remote monitoring and surveillance.

Over-the-top services are gaining traction in Africa as smartphone usage grows, but willingness to pay is limited, and enabling payment is also an ongoing challenge.

Mobile money continues to be an area of intense interest for the region, and for service providers, given the size of the opportunity among the unbanked.

Analysys Mason said that the success of M-Pesa has spawned a plethora of smaller mobile money and payments services, usually local, which have achieved varying levels of success, as well as larger-scale, operator-led initiatives, such as Tigo Cash.

“Operators are also turning their attention to monetising customer relationships through cross-selling non-telecoms financial products, such as insurance (for example, airtel's and MTN's recent airtime-paid insurance offerings in Nigeria). We expect many more examples of this type of innovation to emerge as operators look to supplement core services growth in the African market” Analysys Mason  stated