“It’s driven by consumers and their uptake of the device and the attractive service environment around that. It will happen if the consumers find the benefit of the network and its services,” Fredrik Jejdling, head of Ericsson RSSA, told CNBC Africa on Monday.

“The first interaction with the internet is likely to be on a mobile device for a lot of Africans nowadays. The key driver is not the technology – it’s more along the pricing of the handset. Ultimately people need to be able to afford to utilise these services as well.”

According to Ericsson’s mobility report, Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing mobile markets and a land of opportunity for telecommunications.

“We’re currently around 560 million subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa – that is likely to go up to 930 million subscriptions in 2019. A large part of that growth, 85 per cent, is likely to be data – a combination of 3G and 4G. There has been a voice revolution and what we’re looking forward to now is a substantial increase in data traffic,” Jejdling explained. Read more