The figure which currently stood at 6.ll$150 billion(6.7per cent) was contained in the association’s 2016 mobile economy report.
In the report titled ‘The Mobile Economy Africa 2016’, the global body that represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide projected that the figure would increase as countries benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by Mobile technology.
The report added that the mobile ecosystem supported 3.8 million jobs in 2015. This includes workers directly employed in the ecosystem and jobs indirectly supported by the economic activity generated by the sector.
“The mobile sector also makes a substantial contribution to the funding of the public sector, with $17 billion raised in 2015 in the form of general taxation. The number of jobs supported will increase to 4.5 million by 2020, while the tax contribution to public funding will rise to $20.5 billion,” it noted.
Meanwhile, subscribers’ migration to mobile broadband on the continent is presently being accelerated as a result of network rollouts and mobile operator device and data strategies.
Mobile broadband connections accounted for a quarter of total connections at the end of 2015, but will rise to almost two-thirds by 2020. 4G network launches are gaining traction: by mid-2016, there were 72 live LTE networks in 32 countries across Africa, half of which have launched in the last two years.
The launch of new mobile broadband networks across the region coincides with the growing availability of low-cost devices. The number of smartphone connections has almost doubled over the last two years to reach 226 million, accounting for a quarter of total connections in the region.
This reflects strong uptake in the established mobile markets, such as Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, as well as some relatively new 3G markets.
