Rwanda: How Best to Leverage Growth of Mobile Phone Penetration

Like elsewhere on the African continent, the penetration of mobile phones in Rwanda has been growing steadily over the years.

However, the task now is figuring out the best ways to make the most of the growth in subscription beyond calls and texts.

As at end May, Rwanda Utilities and Regulatory Authority statistics showed that mobile cellular subscriptions stood at over nine million and is further expected to grow with the advent of introduction of cheaper phones.

A report launched last week during the just-concluded GSMA meeting in Kigali projected exponential growth in phone penetration anticipating more than 160 million new unique mobile subscribers will be added across Sub Saharan Africa by 2025.

This will bring the total to 623 million, representing around half of the region's population.

As of 2018, the report showed that there were an estimated 456 million phones on the continent (44 per cent).

Mobile phone penetration in Rwanda like the rest of the continent is expected to serve more purpose than just connecting subscribers.

In East African Community, Rwanda and Tanzania are expected to have the highest subscription rates by 2025.

The growth in subscription presents an ideal opportunity to increase service delivery as well as map out new markets that were previously inaccessible such as healthcare services, insurance, financial services among others.

Kenechi Okeleke a lead analyst at GSMA Intelligence told The New Times that the growth in mobile phone penetration creates an ideal opportunity for countries such as Rwanda to increase service delivery especially of basis services such as education and healthcare.

This, he said creates an ideal opportunity to address social economic challenges such as curbing unemployment and growing returns of emerging small and medium enterprises.

The GSMA report for instance singled out Rwandan start-ups ARED and Kasha among those that are innovating around growth of mobile subscription to facilitate social and economic progress.

Kasha is an e-commerce platform that among other products has eased access to female hygiene products while ARED develops mobile solar kiosks mostly run by women and people living with disabilities... Read more All Africa 

Source: All Africa