By Chris Alu
The country manager, Ericsson Nigeria, Mr Kamar Abass, managing director has said that apart from mobile banking and oil and gas, agriculture and energy would create the biggest opportunities for the mobile operations in the country.
According to him, e-Metering would open new vistas and small businesses in the Africa’s most populous nation, and that other infrastructural developments must be secured and oiled effectively for boisterous market propositions. Abass explained that the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) infrastructure is transformational in the Nigerian market and could be seen as the game changer and driving investments. Also the regional head of Ericssion sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Fredrik Jejdling, said: “Sub-Saharan Africa is currently undergoing a mobile digital revolution with consumers, networks and even media companies are wakening up the possibilities of 3G and 4G technology. We have seen the trend emerging over a few years but in the past twelve months the digital traffic has increased over 100% forcing us to revise our existing predictions.”
According to him, the report’s findings show that the voice call traffic in Sub-Saharan Africa will double and there will be an explosion in mobile data with growing 20 times between 2013 and 2019, twice the anticipated global expansion. He said by 2019 the report predicts that 75 per cent of mobile subscriptions will be internet inclusive (3G or 4G).This growth has been predicted following the launch in 2014 of a number of smartphones for under $50 by a number of major device manufacturers allowing the rapid expansion of 3G and 4G technology across the region.
The 2014 Report predicts that in just three years’ time 3G technology will become the dominant technology across the region. Ericsson regularly performs traffic measurements in over 100 live networks across the world and predictions have been made in collaboration with Ericsson ConsumerLab, utilising population, macroeconomic trends combined with the company’s own data.
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