Region in Focus: Sub-Saharan Africa, Q1 2023

A quarterly update on industry developments, market insights and country KPIs

The Region in Focus series provides an essential quarterly briefing on industry developments, market insights and country KPIs for mobile markets around the world. This edition explores the growing appeal of alternative technology solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Around 175 million people live in areas without mobile broadband coverage in the region. These uncovered communities - predominantly rural, poor and sparsely populated - are the most challenging to reach in a financially sustainable manner. This is driving interest in alternative technology solutions, such as direct to device (D2D) satellite and open RAN. Such technologies offer much promise, but significant challenges must be overcome before they can be deployed on a wider scale.