Africa is among the main drivers of growth in the telecoms industry, current estimates show.

According to Swiss technology firm, Ericsson, there are now more than five billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, thanks largely to emerging markets like China, India, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

Ericsson says the five billionth subscriber was added Thursday, July 8. This comes just 18 months after the four billion mark was reached at the end of 2008.

The main drivers of growth continue to be Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, which accounted for 80 per cent of net additions in global subscriptions in the first half of 2010.

Today, there are 450 million mobile subscribers in Africa compared to the year 2000, when there were 16 million, less than users in Ghana today. There are 20 million subscribers in Kenya.

Mobile broadband subscriptions are also growing at a similar pace and are expected to amount to more than 3.4 billion by 2015 (up from 360 million in 2009).

Over 100 million of these will come from sub-Saharan Africa. Studies show that soon, 80 per cent of all people accessing the internet will be doing so using their mobile device, already the case in Africa.

For some, it is a question of convenience, for others a necessity. Mobile subscriptions allow people who don’t have access to a bank to transfer money; fishermen and farmers get quick updates on sudden changes in the weather forecast, villagers can get local medical care, and children can access online education.

It facilitates daily operations of small businesses and drives economic growth. In more mature markets, connected devices rather than people, are driving the increase in network traffic.

The communication landscape is changing rapidly and in December 2009, another milestone was reached when the amount of data traffic carried over mobile networks exceeded the amount of traffic generated from voice calls.

CAROL MUTHONDU