The aftermath of the devastating covid-19COVID-19 pandemic aftermath has played an important role in bringing to light the social and economic importance of the Sub-Saharan Africa digital landscape. Despite the SSA telecoms taking the challenge head-on, by ensuring that personal and business connections are maintained, approximately 800 million people remain in a dark world. This challenge calls for mobile service providers, governments, and policymakers to bridge the gap. Implementing policies that increase connectivity access and driving investments towards a concrete resilient digital infrastructure will do the trick.

According to a report released by the GSMA, 45% of the SSA (477 million) population had mobile servicesservice subscriptions by the end of 2019. The transition of theThe SSA mobile marketplace will go through several changes, with; by 2025, there are expected to havebe 700 million connections and a 65% subscriber penetration rate.

The top three major players for smartphone connections include Nigeria-154are Nigeria (154 million connections), South Africa-73Africa (73 million connections), and Kenya-47Kenya (47 million connectionsconnections). The report also goes on to state that due to the rapid rise of smartphone adoption in the region, mobile operators will invest $52 billion in the rollout of infrastructure between 2019 and 2025. The rapid adoption of smartphones in the SSA has catalyzed the popularity of smartphone financing models. This will play a vital part in the expected 65% adoption rate and increased mobile sector revenue by 2025.

Commenting on the smartphone connection prediction in the SSA region, Olatunji Kolade, the Marketing & Business Development Manager of Forest Interactive in Nigeria, said that this was a positive outcome in the mobile economy.

“Post-Covid“[The] post-COVID 19 economy has created many new jobs and [a] huge demand for eCommercee-commerce, online training courses on how to use online portals to provide services to clients, and create huge platforms for religious programs, [and] medical and education-related services.

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