Mauritius ranked above Nigeria, South Africa as most mature continental telecoms market

Mauritius remains the most mature African country when it comes to telecoms, according to the 2019 Africa Telecoms Maturity Index by BuddeComm.

The Australian research company’s Telecoms Maturity Index analyses the broadband, mobile and fixed line markets of a country as well as a range of economic parameters to rank it on a scale of one to 100 and compares it to its region. All countries are placed into one of three categories — market leaders, market challengers or developing nations — according to their index score.

In terms of market leaders, the new index placed Mauritius in first place, with a score of 49, while Algeria and South Africa moved up into second and third place with scores of 43 and 34 respectively. In 2018, Mauritius was also number one but Ghana ranked second with a score of 34 and Tunisia third with a score of 31.

According to the index, in Mauritius, the thriving tourism market has stimulated the broadband sector. The island nation has extensive DSL infrastructure and operators have deployed fiber-based services in a number of locations, according to BuddeComm.

In Algeria, mobile penetration approaches 116 per cent and mobile Internet accounts for about 92 per cent of all Internet connections in the country. Algeria’s biggest mobile operator by market share, Mobilis, has also reportedly partnered with Huawei for its network migration to 5G.

BuddeComm noted that in South Africa, mobile penetration by early 2019 approached 169 per cent, driven partly by the popularity of multiple SIM card usage, and also by the take-up of mobile broadband services. Mobile Internet accounts for about 95 per cent of all Internet connections in South Africa.

In the market challenger category, Connecting Africa reported that Libya came out highest with a score of 23 followed by Lesotho with 20.5 and Zimbabwe with 20.2. Developing nations in Africa included Burundi with a score of 9.4, Uganda scoring 9.3 and Nigeria with 9.1.