NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, June 3, 2016

Data is increasingly helping African mobile companies absorb the impact of revenue losses from declining voice services category, ITWebAfrica reported.

Zimbabwen telecom Econet reported on Tuesday a 14 percent decline in revenue for the year ending in February, but revenue from data jumped by 18 percent and income from data services grew from $103 million US to US $113 million.

“Had we not invested in data, today we would be seeing a company that’s half the size we have today,” said Econet Wireless CEO Douglas Mboweni.

Africa’s mobile Internet market has grown steadily over the last decade and new forecasts show mobile data revenue will double over the five years to 2019—topping $22 billion, according to Quartz. Mobile voice revenue, by comparison, is expected to grow by 10 percent in the same period. Mobile voice revenue is still significantly higher than data revenue, at $50 billion in 2014.