• As it does with regularity, Ericsson has released its latest mobility report, with the rollout of 5G being one of the main areas of focus.
• One of the key findings is that Sub-Saharan Africa 5G subscriptions are predicted to reach 150 million by 2028.
• Much of this will be driven by content aggregation, as access to services and entertainment is what customers will want from 5G-powered offerings.

Last week Ericsson delivered its latest Mobility Report, with two key areas of focus being the need for greater sustainability and the rollout of 5G. Regarding the latter, which was also a significant area of discussion at AfricaCom 2022 earlier this is the adoption of 5G on the African continent.

Unlike other regions, which are pushing ahead with the uptake of the mobile broadband standard, Sub-Saharan Africa in particular is lagging playing, and will likely be playing catch up for a number of decades.

To that end, 4G is where many network operators, carriers and infrastructure providers will be focusing their efforts.

“In Sub-Saharan Africa, 2G connections still constitute about half of the total mobile subscriptions. These are projected to decline as subscribers are migrated to 4G and 5G networks. 4G will be the main contributor to new connections up to 2028, accounting for more than half of all mobile subscriptions at that time,” explained Ericsson in a press release sent to Hypertext.

“Currently, 4G represents 29 percent of mobile subscriptions in SSA with 4G subscriptions expected to rise from 260 million in 2022 to 600 million in 2028. The monthly data traffic per smartphone in Sub-Saharan Africa will increase by 26% from 4.6 GB per month in 2022 to 18 GB per month in 2028,” it added.

Looking at one of the key drivers as regards the uptake of 5G solutions among customers, Ericsson highlights content aggregation as critical. Here the bundling of music/movie streaming, cloud-based gaming and other entertainment services by 5G service providers will hold a lot of sway with customers.

“Around 45 percent of 5G service providers are doing this in various forms. The most common practice is to increase the bundle value as the price of the tiers increases. A new form of bundling is starting to emerge, where some service providers act as aggregators,” the report highlighted.

In these cases, the service provider offers a menu from which the consumer can choose from a variety of streaming services, and sometimes events. Often this menu is available regardless of which tier you are on, and the consumer has almost complete flexibility in terms of the number of services to add. The most proactive service providers are adding these offers as part of the customer journey and may also allow adding and removing them on a monthly basis,” it added.

According to Ericsson one of the main benefits to customers with such a model is that there is usually a small discount, compared to signing up directly with the cloud gaming provider for example, along with the fact that all services are charged on one single bill.

Speaking anecdotally, we have seen some service providers dabble with bundling services under one roof in the form of super apps, like Vodacom has done with VodaPay, but we are yet to see anything on the scale that Ericsson describes above.

That said, with 5G rollout increasing in South Africa, perhaps next year is when we could see a network/carrier launch an all-encompassing streaming solution that can cater to whatever a customer may want to access?

For now though, the focus is very much on internet connectivity comparable to that of a high-speed fibre setup.

You can download (PDF) and read the latest Mobility Report for yourself here.

[Image – Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash]