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African Mobile Subscribers Approach 1B In Q3

African Mobile Subscribers Approach 1B In Q3

Increasingly available cheap smartphones pushed the number of African mobile subscribers past 880 million in the third quarter of 2014, according to Ericsson’s Mobility Report.

The mobility report provided an update on mobile trends, according to DailyIndependent in AllAfrica.

Fredrik Jejdling, Ericsson’s president and regional head for sub-Saharan Africa, told reporters in Nigeria he predicts 90 percent of the world’s population over the age of 6 will have a mobile phone by 2020.

Despite the increased rate of smartphone sales, there’s still room for growth in the sector as many users haven’t made the switch to the more feature-
rich, Internet-friendly devices, Jejdling said.

The report predicts smartphone subscriptions globally will increase from 2.7
billion to 6.1 billion by 2020.

The report also said video is the largest and fastest growing segment of mobile data traffic in 4G-dominated networks, constituting 45 percent to 55 percent of mobile traffic.

Mobile video traffic will increase tenfold by 2020, and ultimately constitute around 55 percent of all mobile data traffic in the year.

Video is increasingly part of other online applications such as news and advertising, and on social media platforms the devices used are also evolving, DailyIndependent reports.

“Many have larger screens, enabling higher picture quality for streamed video, which results in video being consumed on all types of devices and in higher quantities both at home and on the move,” the report said.