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Smartphone use in Sub-Saharan Africa is poised to grow by over 700% to 525M users by 2020

Smartphone adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is growing at such a fast pace such that, by 2020, it is projected that there will be 525 million smartphones in SSA (55% of all mobile connections) - an increase of over 700% from 72 milion in 2013. In order to capitaize on the booming smartphone market in SSA, mobile internet operators are migrating quickly to 3G internet technology. Whereas 3G accounted for only 15% of all mobile internet connections in 2013, the figure is expected to reach 52% by 2020.

The mobile ecosystem contributed US$75 billion (5.4% of GDP) to the economy of SSA in 2013 and, by 2020, this figure is projected to grow to US$104 billion (6.2% of GDP). Furthermore, the mobile ecosystem contributed approximately US$13 billion to SSA’s public sector funding through various taxes and provided direct employment to 2.4 million people (3.7 million more people employed indirectly) in 2013. By 2020, up to 3.5 million people will be directly employed in the mobile industry in SSA.

Data: GSMA - The Mobile Economy: S ub-Saharan Africa 2014

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