Orange recently launched its first 5G network in Africa in Botswana, while the Samsung Wallet has gone live in South Africa.
Recent industry events in Africa, including the GSMA’s MWC Africa event in Kigali and the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, have showcased the progress operators and tech companies have made in accelerating digital transformation in recent years. Orange switched on its 5G network in Botswana and announced plans to bring the service to more countries in 2023. CEO Nene Maiga said the main use case would initially be fixed wireless access (FWA) products and within enterprises. A recent study on 5G in Africa by GSMA Intelligence showed that by 2030 there will be more than 340 million 5G connections in Africa which will contribute $26 billion to the region’s economy. FWA will also be one of the main 5G use cases.
Fintech has been one of the biggest growth areas enabled by mobile technology in Africa, with 300 million mobile money users at the end of 2021. This week, Samsung launched a digital wallet app in South Africa and Qatar. Noting research that showed the importance of security and privacy for users of digital wallets, the company said that the wallet is protected by defence-grade security from Samsung Knox.