Mauritius remains the most mature African telecoms market, while Algeria and South Africa have taken over Ghana and Tunisia's respective second and third places in the annual BuddeComm Telecoms Maturity Index. The TMI is designed to analyze the broadband, mobile and fixed markets of a country in addition to a range of economic parameters to rank it on a scale of 1 to 100 and compare it to its region.
The report says that Mauritius is the top-ranking country in Africa where the thriving tourism market has stimulated the broadband sector. Fibre is available to about 85 percent of the company’s fixed broadband customer base.
In Algeria, Mobilis, one of the three major mobile operators, has contracted Huawei as a partner for its network migration to 5G. Mobile penetration approaches 116 percent and mobile internet accounts for about 92 percent of all internet connections in the country.
The study also found mobile penetration in South Africa by early 2019 approached 169 percent, driven partly by the popularity of multiple card use as well as take-up of mobile broadband services. Mobile internet accounts for about 95 percent of all internet connections.