Sub-Saharan African Mobile Internet Use to Explode in Coming Years

Mobile devices mean more mobile Internet use. From the user checking email in the doctor's office to the user watching a cat video while waiting for a mechanic to fix a car, those mobile devices turn to mobile bandwidth to deliver information and entertainment content. But the growth of mobile Internet access isn't universal, and in some places, it's poised to grow at spectacular rates. A new report from Ericsson, meanwhile, shows that in perhaps the most unlikely of places, some of the biggest growth is set to arrive, in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Ericsson study in question, titled the “June 2014 Sub-Saharan Africa Ericsson Mobility Report”, shows without question that sub-Saharan Africa is poised for major growth, ahead of even most developed nations. In 2014, mobile phone users in the region accessed fully 76,000 terabytes of data in a month, a number that more than doubles the number realized in 2013 of 37,500 terabytes per month. That alone is staggering, but the numbers don't stop there. The report expects another doubling to take place in 2015, with the number reaching an average of 147,000 terabytes per month.

Fueling this explosive growth, according to reports, is the rise of not only social media, but more content involving video and the like, as well as the growth of more affordable mobile devices in the region. Consumers in regions like Kenya and South Africa are getting access to television services from mobile devices, which is driving growth. There's more to see, and more devices available to more users from which to see it, so the result is massive growth. Indeed, the report goes on to note that just voice call traffic in the region will double over the next five years, and mobile data will grow over 20 times between just 2013 and 2019. That's said to be double the rate of growth worldwide, and by 2019, fully 75 percent of mobile subscriptions will come with either 3G or 4G access.

Perhaps odder still is that there's no individual area of focus. The regional head of Ericsson for sub-Saharan Africa, Fredrik Jejdling, noted that there are areas of impact all over. Entrepreneurs were getting behind mobile commerce tools. Farmers liked the mobile wallet concept. Teenagers, not surprisingly, were turning to music videos. Essentially, every opportunity that mobile access had to offer was being embraced, and with gusto.

The combination of cheap devices and easy access really should fuel substantial growth, and in all likelihood, about the only thing that's limiting the growth is the scope of the bandwidth and availability of the devices. There likely aren't that many places—leave aside certain groups that eschew technology on a voluntary basis—who wouldn't cheerfully take up the banner of Internet access, fixed or otherwise, if it were made available. We've already seen this in the United States with fixed Internet access; recently, Mississippi's C Spire started to bring gigabit fiber service to the state, including to one entire town that put up enough in pre-order fees to justify the expansion. Google's Project Loon and a separate Facebook project have considered ways to get access to such regions ranging from blimps to drones.

Essentially, mobile Internet access seems to be one of those cases in which “if you build it, they will come” actually works as an expansion strategy. It may not always work, but here, it seems to be doing the job as an expression of what's going on in sub-Saharan Africa.