Experts in the U.S has forecast $234b African mobile market by 2020

Africa’s vibrant mobile phone market is forecast to increase four fold in size from a value of $60 billion in 2013 to $234 billion by 2020, according to experts at Manifest Mind LLC, a U.S. based research firm.

The continent’s mobile phone market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 21.27 per cent between 2013 and 2020, to reach the set target.

Africa’s telecoms sector growth has surged in the last 10 years as the continent has overtaken Europe and Latin America to become the second biggest market in the world for handsets after Asia, according to global mobile phone body, the GSMA.

Figures from the GSMA also indicate that from 2007 to 2012 mobile connections in Africa more than doubled from 283 million to 735 million.

In 2005, the number of mobile connections in Africa amounted to just 15 per cent of the continent’s total population, according to the GSMA. However, by 2012, this percentage had jumped to 72 per cent of Africa’s estimated one billion people.

However, Manifest says that despite Africa’s seemingly growing mobile phone usage rates, there could be significant scope for further take-up of handsets on the continent.

Manifest added that mobile network operators are upgrading their infrastructures to handle 3G and 4G long-term evolution (LTE) bandwidths from the current predominant 2G services.