Rising involvement of African telecom operators in the gaming industry

Telecom giants across Africa are expanding their content offerings, and mobile gaming could be their next big play in the entertainment space. Today, an estimated 230 million people are active gamers in Sub-Saharan Africa, mostly coming from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. Mobile is the most popular device used for gaming in the region, far ahead of the more expensive consoles and PCs. And if mobile devices are becoming more and more affordable, so are data plans, improving even further gaming accessibility. Major regional operators in the likes of Vodacom and Telkom are already launching products and initiatives to position themselves in that promising segment. Industry players are very aware of the numerous opportunities that the fast-growing mobile gaming market unlocks, both in terms of revenues and data consumption.  From recent initiatives to long-term strategies, let’s take a look at how Sub-Saharan operators address the mobile’s gaming trend and navigate the specific dynamics of this expanding market. Tapping into Africa’s mobile gaming market expansion In the global gaming landscape, mobile gaming represents half of the industry’s revenues. Taking a closer look at game publisher’s revenues, the mobile segment also dominates with over 55% of their revenues coming from that channel in 2023.  In Africa this trend is significantly more pronounced, with 90% of the $1 billion expected to be generated in 2024 by the regional game market coming from the mobile segment. The active gamer base is rapidly expanding, led by South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. Multiple factors explain the development of mobile gaming in these countries: Their young and tech-savvy populations. The region's age pyramid is among the youngest in the world. Digital entertainment, and even more so mobile gaming, is important for the youth and positioning its brand to match this target’s expectation is a key lever to seduce a large audience. As Africa’s most populated country with 223M inhabitants in 2023 and an average age below 18 years old, Nigeria especially stands out in that regard.  Mobile gaming accessibility is facilitated by the rise of mobile internet and smartphone penetration. Even if discrepancies and digital development inequalities remain characteristic of the region, the share of the population having access to a smartphone is steadily increasing (see the map below). Infrastructure is also developing at an accelerating pace, improving the quality of the network and connecting remote areas. 4G and 5G roll-outs allow more users to benefit from the fast internet connection required to play online mobile games. Both these evolutions translate into an increase of mobile internet subscription. In South Africa and Nigeria, mobile internet subscriptions represented respectively 70% and 57% of the total mobile subscriptions in Q2 2024. Improvements in the speed and reliability of the...

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