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August 5, 2010
With the new undersea cables lighting up (EASSy being the most recent addition) and driving the international bandwidth costs down, one of East Africa’s main obstacles to the adoption of ICT has been lifted. Add to this new terrestrial backbones reaching into landlocked markets, and we have ourselves a region — once known for its lack of telecommunications infrastructure — that represents considerable opportunities for growth.
As we describe more in detail in our Country Intelligence Report on Uganda, it is one of the countries we expect to benefit from these developments. We project the telecom market in Uganda to grow from $712m in 2010 to $1.23bn in 2015.
The mobile penetration level in Uganda is only 32.8%. This implies a race among operators to realize the organic growth potential of unsigned subscribers. However, this is never a trivial task in the sub-Saharan region because of the prevalence of rural communities that are hard to reach and have low income.
The mobile market in Uganda is very competitive. There are two new players, Foris Telecom and Smile Telecom, which increased the number of mobile operators from five to seven. MTN holds a comfortable leadership in terms of mobile revenue and subscriptions, but Bharti’s acquisition of Zain and Essar’s controlling stake in Warid Telecom should stir things up.
While Uganda lacks a strong established fixed infrastructure, its unified licensing regime is allowing operators to expand quickly with the technologies that they feel comfortable with. Wireless technologies (e.g., WiMAX, CDMA and WLL) comprised 76% of all the fixed, last-mile access in Uganda, and this percentage will grow.
The decline in tariffs will propel both data service adoption and data revenue. Broadband adoption will grow at a staggering CAGR of 46.5% between 2010 and 2015. Mobile data growth will be at 22.5% with connectivity, SMS and basic applications, such as mobile banking driving usage. The top three operators (MTN, UTL and Zain) have mobile banking services, with Warid and Orange expected to follow. The growth of data revenue can compensate for the early stagnancy of voice service revenue in Uganda, though not without the help of a proactive government that will solve the problems that arose during the implementation of the national fiber backbone.
— Kerem Arsal, Senior Analyst, AME
Related resources:
Africa & Middle East Mobile Data Forecasts
Forecasts published quarterly
Our Mobile Handset Forecast products provide a complete picture of handset sell-through in each of Israel, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey. The Excel output includes five years of historical data and five years of market projections for metrics such as total handset sales, handset sales by network technology, new handset sales (by technology, by technology generation, by feature set), smartphone handset sales, vendor market share and handset ASP. We believe our Handset Forecasts are superior because they capture sell-through (units sold to end users) rather than unit shipments (sales from manufacturers to distributors) and rely heavily on our Mobile Demand Forecasts. Moreover, they are based on extensive field research, and a consistent methodology that is applied to all markets. Data from these Forecasts is available online for subscribers to our Data Tracker service.
Africa & Middle East Fixed Communications Forecasts
Forecasts published quarterly
Our Fixed Communications Forecast products provide a complete picture of wireline voice and data communications in each of eight African and Middle Eastern markets. The Excel output includes five years of historical data and five years of market projections for metrics such as demographics and economic trends, penetration of broadband and narrowband lines, Internet users, business users, voice telephony lines, VoIP, PCs, IPTV and revenue. We believe our Fixed Communications Forecasts are superior because they capture granular data gathered through extensive field research and use a thorough methodology consistently applied to all markets. Data from these Forecasts is available online for subscribers to our Data Tracker service.
Undersea Cables to Drive an African Broadband Boom
Telecom Insider published August 2009
The 12 new cables to be launched between 2009 and 2011 will increase Africa’s total international bandwidth from about 6Tbps to as much as 34Tbps and will reduce the number of coastal countries without any cable access from 19 to one. We forecast that total broadband adoption in Africa will increase at a CAGR of 28% from 2009 to 2013, as increased competition in the international bandwidth market brings down prices and as the new cables support the corresponding increase in demand. Former monopolists will have to compensate for lower wholesale revenue by expanding their subscriber bases among both ISPs and end users, while new entrants will seek to gain market share without straying into dangerous hypercompetition.
Africa & the Middle East Mobile Handset Forecasts
Forecasts published quarterly
Our Mobile Handset Forecast products provide a complete picture of handset sell-through in each of Israel, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey. The Excel output includes five years of historical data and five years of market projections for metrics such as total handset sales, handset sales by network technology, new handset sales (by technology, by technology generation, by feature set), smartphone handset sales, vendor market share and handset ASP. We believe our Handset Forecasts are superior because they capture sell-through (units sold to end users) rather than unit shipments (sales from manufacturers to distributors) and rely heavily on our Mobile Demand Forecasts. Moreover, they are based on extensive field research, and a consistent methodology that is applied to all markets. Data from these Forecasts is available online for subscribers to our Data Tracker service.
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