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

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Johannesburg – Cellular operators want to open up their networks for more banking transactions as they have pinned their hopes on mobile money to grow revenues in the future.

According to Fredrik Jejdling, Ericsson’s sub-Saharan African regional head, the most downloaded mobile apps in Africa now were banking apps. Social networks were the second most downloaded.

Discussing the source of their revenue growth in the next decade at the Africa Com telecoms conference yesterday, the operators said that as their traditional voice revenue had come under pressure, data revenues had exploded over the past two years.

“Clearly data is the future growth… Mobile operators need to allow transactions to be made through their networks to embrace this future,” Vodacom chief operating officer Romeo Kumalo said.