Study Says: Mauritius, Ghana and Tunisia Lead African Telecoms

By Ken Briodagh June 20, 2018

According to a recent release, BuddeComm has launched an exclusive Telecoms Maturity Index (TMI), designed to analyze the broadband, mobile and fixed Line markets of a country in addition to a range of economic parameters to rank it on a scale of 1 to 100 and compare it to its region. Now, the company’s Africa TMI is available and reveals the market leaders, the challengers and the developing ones.

The report says that Mauritius is the top-ranking country in Africa with a Telecoms Maturity Index score of 43, followed by Ghana (34) and Tunisia (31).

Mauritius stands out, which the report largely explains with the country’s thriving tourism market, which has stimulated the broadband sector. There is an extensive DSL infrastructure and operators have deployed fiber-based services in a number of localities. Mauritius Telecom invested Rs5.1 billion to roll out fiber across the island, with the project completed the end of 2017 (ahead of the original 2020 timescale).

The top three market challengers are Mauritania with a score of 13, Uganda (13) and Kenya (12).

The top three developing markets are Angola (7) Chad (7) and Cameroon (6)

Mobile telephony remains by far the dominant telecom service across Africa, accounting for more than 90 percent of all telephone lines on the continent. Given the very poor condition of fixed-line infrastructure in most markets, mobile internet access as a consequence also accounts for between 95 percent and 99 percent of all internet connections.

The size and range of the diverse markets within Africa have contributed to varied market penetration rates between countries. By early 2018 the highest mobile penetration was found in countries including Gabon (163 percent), Botswana (159 percent), South Africa (147 percent) and Mauritius (146 percent). To some degree high penetration reflects the popularity of consumers having multiple SIM cards despite efforts among most regulators to enforce measures by which operators must register SIM card users

For the full report, click here.

Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars.

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