While mobile connectivity has emerged as a major engine of economic growth across Africa, experts have warned that the continent’s challenge is increasingly shifting from network coverage to meaningful usage.

Data presented by the GSMA at the recently concluded Nigeria Digital Connectivity Investment Forum, organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Abuja, showed that mobile broadband coverage in Africa now reaches nearly 90 per cent of the population.

Nigeria has about 195 million active mobile lines, representing 90 per cent teledensity against a population of 242 million. Yet smartphone ownership stood at only 27 per cent in 2024, while the country’s mobile usage gap was nearly 60 per cent.

The disparity between infrastructure availability and actual adoption is even more pronounced across Africa, where the usage gap stands at 63 per cent, compared with a global average of 38 per cent.

Presenting a paper titled “Connectivity to Economic Value,” GSMA Director of Industry Services, Kanwulia Okafor, said: “Coverage is an input. Productive use is the outcome.”

According to Okafor, mobile technology already contributes 7.8 per cent to Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP), compared with 6.4 per cent globally, but the continent’s economic gains could be significantly higher if more people could afford smartphones, trust digital services and acquire the skills required to use them effectively.

She identified device affordability, digital literacy and the relevance of available services as persistent barriers preventing millions of Africans from participating fully in the digital economy.

The Nigerian situation is particularly significant as demand for connectivity continues to accelerate.

The NCC said Nigeria’s mobile base is projected to reach 350 million by 2036, while data usage is expected to grow at about 20 per cent annually. By 2030, power demand from data centres is also expected to double, underscoring the need for infrastructure and energy investments to keep pace with digital growth.

GSMA Intelligence projects that by 2030, 65 per cent of mobile-enabled economic impact in Africa will be concentrated in three sectors — services, manufacturing and agriculture.

In services, connectivity is expected to support commerce, logistics and professional services, while manufacturing stands to benefit from automation, visibility and improved uptime. In agriculture, digital tools could improve market access, advisory services, payments and traceability.

Other sectors, including public administration, construction, ICT and finance, are also expected to benefit, although the GSMA said the largest productivity gains would come from mainstream industries embedding connectivity into their everyday operations.

The telecoms body identified three mechanisms critical to converting connectivity into economic activity: trust, access and transformation.

Trust, it said, would require safer digital interactions through authentication and fraud reduction. It cited the use of network signals by banks and fintechs in South Africa to reduce fraud.

Access, it added, would depend on affordable devices and local-language interfaces, noting that Africa is home to more than 30 per cent of the world’s languages.

Transformation, according to the GSMA, would involve embedding connectivity into sector workflows through technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and cloud services.

Nearly 80 per cent of African operators, it said, cite digital transformation partnerships as a primary enterprise goal.

Presenting a paper titled ‘Connectivity as an Engine of Economic Growth: The Azerbaijan Case’, Lead Industry Analyst at Ookla, Karim Yaici, provided an international example of how investment in connectivity could translate into broader economic activity.

Yaici said Azerbaijan’s “Online Azerbaijan” initiative expanded fibre coverage from nine per cent to more than 95 per cent within five years, while median download speeds increased nearly ninefold.

He said fibre adoption was also strongly associated with new business formation, with each additional connection per 100 residents linked to up to 3.7 per cent more firm registrations.

According to him, connectivity and local economic activity increased together in 95 per cent of districts, suggesting that adoption, rather than speed alone, is important in translating infrastructure into economic growth.

For Nigeria, the challenge is therefore increasingly about converting its expanding infrastructure into productive digital participation.

The Chief Executive Officer of Chapel Hill Denham, Bolaji Balogun, in his presentation, “Financing Nigeria’s Digital Future,” said the country needed to build on its infrastructure base by closing the usage gap.

He said policymakers needed to treat power as core telecommunications infrastructure, plan for rapidly multiplying data demand and develop data-centre corridors across the country.

Balogun also stressed the need for longer-term financing for digital infrastructure, arguing that commercial banks alone could not provide the funding required for assets with long investment horizons.

“Banks alone cannot carry this,” he said, urging capital markets, pension funds and insurance companies to provide long-tenor funding needed to build infrastructure ahead of demand.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr Amin Maida, said the forum was designed to foster dialogue among regulators, investors, infrastructure providers and development partners on the investment requirements for expanding connectivity.

He said the objective was to identify barriers to infrastructure deployment and develop partnerships capable of accelerating digital transformation and economic development.

Maida said Nigeria’s telecommunications sector had demonstrated the impact of sound policy, transparent regulation and investor confidence over the past 25 years.

He noted that the liberalisation of the sector and introduction of transparent licensing processes encouraged private-sector participation, resulting in significant growth in connectivity and communications services.

“The experience of the last two and a half decades underscores the importance of creating an enabling environment for investment. As a regulator, the Commission remains committed to facilitating investment while ensuring consumer protection and promoting fair competition,” he said.

However, Maida noted that demand for reliable digital connectivity was continuing to rise as individuals, businesses, educational institutions and public services increasingly depended on broadband-enabled technologies.

He said the growing adoption of cloud-based services, digital platforms and artificial intelligence applications would further increase the need for robust and resilient telecommunications infrastructure.

Highlighting the scale of the demand, Maida disclosed that data consumption in Nigeria increased from approximately 1.13 million terabytes in July 2025 to 1.66 million terabytes in July 2026, representing growth of nearly 47 per cent in one year.

He said sustaining such growth would require significant investment in network expansion, modernisation and quality-of-service improvements.

“The investment challenge before us is not merely one of expanding coverage. It is also about ensuring that those already connected enjoy better service quality, improved user experiences, and infrastructure capable of supporting future technologies,” he said.

The Swedish Ambassador to Nigeria, Anna Westerholm, also acknowledged gaps in connectivity coverage, quality, affordability and supporting infrastructure.

She said government, industry and investors would need to work together to address the gaps, adding that data on network performance and user experience could help identify investment needs, reduce uncertainty and strengthen investor confidence.