African countries with the highest number of mobile phones

The African phone market has witnessed rapid expansion in recent years with the International Telecom Union (ITU) forecasting the number of mobile phone users to hit 500 million in 2025.

According to the ITU data on the telecom sector, Africa has become the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market with the continent’s mobile phone usage rising at an annual rate of 65% and expanding nearly twice as fast as the Asian market.

The latest research data from Canalys revealed that in Q4 2023, African countries received shipments of 19.2 million units of mobile phones indicating a 24% year-on-year growth.

Analysts have linked the growing demand for phones in the continent to the rising digital services market, thriving social media, and the introduction of easy purchasing methods by some Fintech and business agents like the Buy Now, Pay Later options.

According to sources around the web, here are some African countries with the highest number of mobile phone users:

Nigeria currently leads other African countries with a mobile phone penetration rate of 85%.

According to data from GSMA Intelligence, there were 118.6 million mobile connections in South Africa at the start of 2024. This figure is about 195.4% of South Africa’s population.

The population of South Africa stood at 60.69 million in January 2024.

The country’s mobile penetration rate has been put at 95% while the number of active mobile connections has been recorded as 110.5 million according to data from Datareportal.

Egypt’s population stood at 113.6 million as at January 2024.

There were 77.39 million cellular mobile connections in Ethiopia in early 2024 which is equivalent to 60.4% of the total population.

Ethiopia’s population during the period stood at 128.1 million.

As of January 2024, Kenya’s mobile telephone connections stood at 66.04 million. This figure is equivalent to 118.7% of the total population.

Kenya’s population stood at 55.65 million as of January 2024.