Africa Top Success Ils font l'Afrique
These recent years, we notice a boom of quality smartphones on the African continent. These phones are affordable to the consumers at much studied prices; what was not the case a decade ago.
Left behind with a low penetration rate of smartphones on the continent (15 %), the African market is henceforth ready to explode, because of the improvement of the mobile broadband coverage and the reduction of the connection cost, according to a study by the Deloitte cabinet published last Monday.
The study reveals that the number of Smartphones should double before 2017 to exceed 350 million phones connected in Africa.
« Smartphone market will get a growth of more than 40 % in 2015 with 70 million Smartphones which will be sold in Africa« , asserted Karim Koundi, an official for Deloitte French-speaking Africa.
« The market is stimulated by a strong growth of African economies and catalyzed by the arrival of the low-cost Smartphones that democratize the access to the digital technology« , he explained before adding that « 350 million Smartphones will be connected in Africa by 2017« .
The emergence of Smartphone inevitably leads to the development of mobile payment.
We should underline that Africa is already a pioneer in this domain with 52 % of the world transactions, according to Deloitte cabinet.
More than half of mobile users use this means of payment in Kenya and Tanzania and more than a quarter in South Africa and Senegal, according to the study.
After Google that announced the launcingh of an intelligent phone for less than 100 dollars for the emerging markets, Microsoft replied last January by proposing two new phones sold between 69 and 79 euros.
According to AFP, thirteen (13) countries, essentially on the west coast of Africa, benefit from the broadband at an affordable price thanks to the submarine cables with optical fiber ACE (Africa Coast to Europe) that has connected France to Sao Tome and Principe since 2012, congratulated himself the Orange French operator at the end of 2012.
This network would eventually be widened to seven other African countries, among which Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Original text by:Blaise AKAME
