Mobile operators are preparing for a new investment cycle worth over $76 billion as the industry repositions itself for the next stage of Africa’s digital transformation.
The planned spending, scheduled between 2024 and 2030, reflects a shift away from the traditional objective of expanding network coverage toward an ambition of increasing digital usage, deepening service adoption, and creating greater economic value from existing connectivity infrastructure.
The projection is contained in the latest Mobile Economy Africa report by the GSMA, which outlines how mobile technologies continue to anchor Africa’s digital transformation while also revealing the next set of challenges that could define the sector’s growth trajectory.
According to the report, mobile technologies and services contributed about $240 billion to Africa’s economy in 2025 alone, representing 7.8 percent of the continent’s gross domestic product. The ecosystem also supported an estimated 13 million jobs and generated $45 billion in public revenue, reinforcing the sector’s position as one of the most influential drivers of economic activity across African markets.
Beyond its current contribution, the GSMA projects that the mobile industry’s economic impact will rise further to around $290 billion by 2030 as digital adoption deepens and mobile connectivity becomes even more embedded in business operations, public services, and everyday life.
While the past decade was largely defined by rapid network expansion and efforts to close basic coverage gaps, the industry is now entering a more complex phase. Operators are increasingly focusing on how to convert widespread connectivity into meaningful usage and digital value.
The GSMA notes that mobile operators across Africa are evolving beyond their traditional role as infrastructure providers. Increasingly, they are positioning themselves as digital transformation partners, integrating advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, expanding digital service offerings, and opening up network capabilities to external developers through standardised application programming interfaces, commonly known as APIs.
GSMA Intelligence data shows that 79 percent of operators in Africa now identify becoming a digital transformation partner as a core enterprise objective. This underscores a structural shift in strategy, as telecom companies look beyond voice and data services toward broader digital ecosystems that include fintech solutions, cloud services, enterprise platforms, and smart infrastructure.
Vivek Badrinath, director general of the GSMA, described the shift as a new phase in the continent’s mobile development journey.
He noted that after years of connecting millions of people and businesses, the focus is now increasingly centred on extracting greater value through artificial intelligence, digital services, and innovation-led models. He added that achieving this transition will require sustained investment, supportive policy environments, and collaboration across the wider technology supply chain.
Despite significant progress in expanding network availability, the report highlights a growing imbalance between coverage and actual usage of mobile internet services.
Today, about 63 percent of Africans live within range of mobile broadband networks but are not using mobile internet services. In contrast, only around 9 percent of the population remains outside network coverage entirely. This shift suggests that infrastructure expansion alone is no longer the main barrier to digital inclusion.
Instead, affordability constraints, limited digital skills, and broader socio-economic factors are now the dominant obstacles preventing wider adoption of mobile internet across many African markets. Device costs, data pricing, and uneven access to digital literacy continue to shape who benefits from connectivity and who remains excluded.
The GSMA argues that addressing this usage gap will be critical to unlocking the next phase of Africa’s digital economy, particularly as governments and private sector players increasingly rely on digital platforms for service delivery, financial transactions, and economic participation.
AI, APIs and the next wave of telecom services
Alongside infrastructure investment and adoption challenges, the report highlights how emerging technologies are reshaping the competitive landscape for mobile operators.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being deployed within network operations to improve efficiency, enhance customer experience, and support the development of new digital services. However, the GSMA points out a significant structural limitation: most mainstream AI systems are still trained primarily on high resource languages such as English, despite Africa being home to more than 30 percent of the world’s languages.
To address this gap, industry stakeholders are developing initiatives aimed at building Africa specific AI capabilities. One such effort is the GSMA’s “AI language models in Africa, by Africa, for Africa” programme, which focuses on strengthening local data ecosystems, computing capacity, technical skills, and supportive policy frameworks needed to support African led AI development.
The report also highlights growing momentum behind GSMA Open Gateway, an industry initiative designed to standardise network application programming interfaces across operators. These APIs allow developers and enterprises to directly access telecom network capabilities in a more structured way.
This development is already enabling new services across sectors such as financial technology, e-commerce, identity verification, and digital public infrastructure. It is also strengthening areas like fraud detection and digital trust, which have become increasingly important as digital transactions expand across the continent.
The GSMA emphasises that policy decisions will play a decisive role in determining how successfully Africa transitions into this next phase of digital growth. Regulatory frameworks, investment conditions, and taxation policies will all influence how quickly infrastructure is deployed and how widely digital services are adopted.
Key policy areas highlighted include spectrum availability, investment incentives, affordability interventions, and regulatory predictability. According to the report, markets that have adopted more balanced tax regimes on devices and digital services have typically seen faster adoption rates and broader digital inclusion outcomes.
The organisation argues that without coordinated policy support, the benefits of infrastructure expansion may not fully translate into meaningful digital participation for a large portion of the population.
Investment outlook and industry direction
Against this backdrop, mobile operators are expected to sustain significant capital expenditure over the coming years. The projected $76 billion investment in network infrastructure between 2024 and 2030 reflects both the ongoing need to upgrade existing networks and the push toward next generation technologies, including 5G deployment.
By 2030, 5G connections are expected to account for around 21 percent of total mobile connections across Africa. While still in early stages compared to more advanced markets, the technology is expected to support new use cases in enterprise services, automation, and advanced digital applications.
However, the GSMA warns that infrastructure alone will not be sufficient to drive the next stage of growth. The central challenge, it argues, lies in ensuring that connectivity translates into meaningful usage that supports productivity, innovation, and economic participation.
Closing the gap between access and impact
The widening gap between mobile network availability and actual usage has become one of the key structural challenges in Africa’s digital economy. Although coverage has expanded significantly over the past decade, future growth is expected to depend less on further infrastructure rollout and more on addressing barriers such as affordability, limited digital skills, and access to devices.
The GSMA underscores that improving usage is now central to unlocking the full value of existing networks, with broader adoption seen as essential not only for operator growth but also for deepening the economic and social impact of digital connectivity across financial services, public administration, and enterprise development.
