Mobile Africa Report 2011

According to industry estimates, there are more than 500 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa now, up from 246 million in 2008. In 2000, the number of mobile phones first exceeded that of fixed telephones. The four biggest mobile phone markets in Africa are Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana. Strategic investors in Africa’s mobile industry include South Africa’s MTN, India’s Bharti Airtel, France Telecom (via its Orange brand), Britian’s Vodafone and Luxembourg’s Millicom. The mobile innovators’ network Mobile Monday is now in seven cities in Africa and targets a dozen cities in the coming years.

The largest fixed line broadband market is South Africa, followed in order of market size by Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. According to Facebook statistics tracker Socialbakers, there were around 10.5 million Facebook users in Africa in 2010. Mobile broadband subscribers in Africa -- users of data cards and USB devices via cellular 3G networks – crossed 3 million in September 2009 and were expected to break the 4 million milestone in the first quarter of 2010. In total, 4.54 Terabytes of cable capacity is available across 13 submarine cables in Africa. These will further expand to 24.5 Terabytes by 2011, according to Africa Analysis.
http://www.mobilemonday.net/reports/MobileAfrica_2011.pdf