Why 2025 marked a turning point for African telecoms

In 2025, Africa’s telecom industry entered a defining chapter. Towers and cell sites now blanket the continent, yet hundreds of millions of people still can’t afford to get online. Mobile operators raised prices even as they slashed tariffs to survive bruising price wars. Fibre raced across coastlines and deep into cities, and 5G towers lit up skylines—yet for many consumers, the devices needed to use them were priced far out of reach.

It was a year built on contradictions. Africa’s digital infrastructure is scaling faster than at any point in its history, but the impact remains uneven. The gap between coverage and affordability widened; the gap between infrastructure and usable connectivity became impossible to ignore. By 2025, these pressures collided, forcing operators, regulators, and investors to make uncomfortable choices about pricing, expansion, and what sustainable growth truly entails.

In December 2024, mobile coverage across Africa had reached roughly 88.4% of the population, according to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates. In theory, almost everyone lived within reach of a signal. In practice, only about 416 million Africans were using mobile internet as of September 2025, according to data from the GSMA, translating to a roughly 28% penetration rate. Total internet usage, including fixed broadband, hovered between 36% and 38%, still the lowest of any region in the world.

The gap between coverage and usage has become Africa’s defining telecom challenge. While more than 80% of the population now lives within reach of 3G or better networks, hundreds of millions remain offline because of high device costs, limited digital literacy, and constrained household incomes. The result is a continent where infrastructure is no longer the primary bottleneck, but demand is.

Despite this, telecoms remained one of Africa’s most important economic sectors. In 2024, mobile services contributed $220 billion to the continent’s GDP, accounting for roughly 7.7% of the total output. Unique mobile subscribers numbered around 710 million, accounting for nearly 47% of the population. Growth continued, but it was slower and more contested than in previous decades.

Pricing wars in an inflationary year

Against this backdrop, pricing became the industry’s most visible battleground. Across 2025, operators in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana unleashed aggressive promotions, bonus data offers, and app-specific bundles to defend market share as inflation squeezed consumers and over-the-top services continued to erode traditional voice and SMS revenues.

Smaller challengers, mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), and new satellite-enabled offerings added further pressure. To retain users, incumbents leaned heavily on segmentation strategies, bundling mobile data with fintech services, entertainment content, and fixed-wireless broadband.

Nowhere were these tensions more evident than in Nigeria and South Africa. In January 2025, the Nigerian Communications Commission approved a landmark 50% increase in regulated telecom tariffs, the first such adjustment in over a decade. Minimum voice rates rose from about ₦11 to ₦15.40 per minute. SMS prices increased from ₦4 to ₦5.60. The reference price for 1GB of data moved from roughly ₦1,000 to at least ₦1,400.

The reaction was immediate. MTN Nigeria and SWIFT Networks were among the first to raise prices, with MTN adjusting several popular bundles above the headline increase before issuing a public apology. Airtel Nigeria followed days later, restructuring its plans and lifting prices by roughly 50%. By mid-2025, the average cost of 1GB had risen sharply to roughly ₦430–₦450 ($0.31), up from under ₦300 before the 50% tariff hike and subsequent bundle repricing.

South Africa reignited its “data expiry wars” as Parliament pushed for non-expiring or long-term data, while operators defended the current rules. Lawmakers argued that high costs and short validity periods harmed consumers and proposed applying the Consumer Protection Act’s three-year voucher standard to prepaid data. MTN and Vodacom countered, warning regulators that removing expiry entirely was “unfeasible,” would disrupt pricing models, and could increase the cost of short-term bundles for low-income users.

Higher prices, higher revenues, louder backlash

The tariff reset delivered what operators had long argued for: breathing room to invest. By the second quarter of 2025, MTN and Airtel reported average revenue per user increases of around 31% to 32%. Industry data showed Nigerians spending roughly ₦721 billion ($480.7 million) monthly on data by mid-year, even as consumer groups warned that affordability was deteriorating.

Telecoms’ contribution to Nigeria’s GDP rebounded sharply, with Q3 output reaching about ₦4.4 trillion ($2.93 billion). Operators unlocked more than $1 billion in new infrastructure spending, linking higher tariffs directly to renewed capital expenditure.

But the backlash never fully subsided. The same pricing moves that restored balance sheets also deepened the usage gap. For millions of low-income users, higher data prices meant rationing connectivity or dropping off the internet altogether, even as networks expanded around them.

Fibre becomes the real competitive moat

If pricing defined consumer-facing competition in 2025, fibre defined the strategic war beneath it. Across Africa, operators, governments, and neutral-host infrastructure players rushed to control fibre routes linking subsea cables to cities, data centres, and 5G sites.

The arrival of new subsea systems—including the Medusa cable, which made its first African landing in Bizerte, Tunisia, on November 1, 2025, and the SEA-ME-WE-6 cable, which completed its first Egyptian landing on July 2, 2025—has reshaped the regional connectivity landscape. 

By September 2025, the 2Africa cable had completed landings along both Africa’s west and east coasts, dramatically expanding international bandwidth for countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, and Ghana. Combined with Google’s Equiano cable, these systems slashed wholesale bandwidth costs and positioned major coastal markets as regional interconnection hubs.

Governments acted in parallel. In Nigeria, the World Bank has approved $500 million toward a $2 billion public-private program to deploy 90,000 km of fiber by late 2025, thereby boosting inland coverage and 5G readiness. Across East and Southern Africa, similar national and regional fibre backbones are emerging. 

Kenya is expanding its National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) to counties and borders, linking Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Tanzania. Meanwhile, World Bank–supported corridors are piggybacking on transport projects, such as the Northern Corridor and the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) project. 

In Southern Africa, networks from Openserve, Liquid, and WIOCC connect subsea landings to major cities and neighbouring countries, forming multi-country backbone rings. Landlocked nations such as Uganda, Rwanda, and Zambia have built wholesale backbones tied to African Union “digital superhighway” plans, reducing costs and reliance on a few MNO‑controlled routes, mirroring Nigeria’s open-access fibre vision.

Fibre, data centres, and the AI pull

Africa also hosts more than 150 active data centres, with South Africa (25.1%), Nigeria (15%), and Kenya (13.3%) holding the largest shares. New carrier‑neutral data centres are being clustered near major subsea cable landing stations and linked by high‑capacity fibre rings, reducing latency and backhaul costs while enabling low‑latency services for enterprises and global cloud providers

This shift altered how telecom operators viewed growth. Consumer mobile services remained important, but enterprise connectivity, data centre interconnection, and wholesale fibre emerged as more stable revenue pools. Whoever controlled the best fibre routes was best placed to capture the next wave of digital demand.

In 2025, Africa’s largest operators accelerated fibre backhaul investment to fuel the rollout of 5G and high-speed home broadband across key markets. 

Airtel Africa, MTN, Safaricom, and Liquid Intelligent Technologies expanded long-haul capacity in Nigeria and Kenya, with Airtel Nigeria lifting capex to $875–$900 million, Safaricom growing its 5G network to 1,700 sites covering 30% of the population, MTN’s Bayobab targeting 135,000 km of proprietary fibre, and Liquid leveraging its 110,000 km network to support middle-mile connectivity for 5G and cloud. 

Vodacom Group pursued a similar strategy, acquiring a 30% stake in Maziv (Vumatel and DFA) for $790.49 million, allocating $1.38 billion in regional capex, and signing an infrastructure-sharing deal with Airtel Africa to accelerate 5G backhaul in Tanzania, Mozambique, and the DRC.

5G expands, monetisation lags

While fibre quietly strengthened the industry’s backbone, 5G remained the most visible marker of progress. In 2025, South African operators transitioned from pilots to broader mid-band 5G rollouts, prioritising Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) for high-capacity home and business broadband. 

Telkom SA focused on FWA to expand its broadband ecosystem, Vodacom deployed dual-band massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) to boost FWA capacity, MTN reached 44% population coverage, emphasising mid-band FWA and private networks, and Rain solidified its position with uncapped 5G home WiFi. FWA has emerged as a major revenue driver, accounting for 24% of 5G earnings as router costs fell below $80.

In Nigeria, operators continue to promote 5G as a fixed-broadband alternative, offering home routers and uncapped or high-capacity data plans in cities with limited fibre or copper infrastructure. MTN and Airtel sell routers that support dozens of devices in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and other urban centres. 

In East Africa, Safaricom more than doubled the number of its 5G sites in Kenya in 2025, from 803 to 1,700, covering approximately 30% of the population as part of its national broadband goals. 

In North Africa, Tunisia and Egypt launched commercial 5G services in early and mid-2025, while Morocco’s ANRT (Agence Nationale de Réglementation des Télécommunication) granted licences to Maroc Telecom, Orange, and inwi, requiring at least 45% population coverage by 2026 and 85% by 2030, making regulatory targets a key driver of rollout.

Monetisation lagged despite 5G deployment. By 2024–2025, 5G represented only 1–2% of mobile connections in Sub‑Saharan Africa, with 98–99% of SIMs still on 2G–4G, and 4G making up roughly one-third to nearly half of connections, depending on the country. 

Entry-level 5G smartphones in markets like Nigeria cost ₦160,000 ($114)–₦200,000 ($143)—more than three times the monthly minimum wage—while GSMA estimates a basic smartphone consumes about 48% of a low-income earner’s monthly income. Consequently, millions continue using 3G/4G devices, where speeds are adequate for apps like WhatsApp, streaming, and mobile money. The result is a paradox: capital-intensive 5G networks deployed into markets still constrained by basic affordability.

Reinvention at the operator level

These pressures prompted operators to rethink their business models, with T2 Nigeria, formerly 9mobile and the country’s fourth-largest operator, offering a clear example.

Under new ownership, the company embarked on a multi-phase turnaround, starting with stabilisation and moving into large-scale modernisation. Years of underinvestment had left its infrastructure obsolete, forcing management to rebuild radio networks, core systems, transmission infrastructure, and billing platforms almost from scratch.

The transformation culminated in a full rebrand to “T2” in August 2025, framed as a digital-first comeback. Executives positioned the new identity as a signal of renewed competitiveness, backed by shareholder commitments to fund network upgrades and reposition the brand in an increasingly brutal market.

Whether the reinvention succeeds remains an open question, but the move reflected a broader industry reality: standing still was no longer an option.

Satellites enter the equation

Even as fibre and 5G dominated headlines, 2025 also marked a turning point for satellite and mobile convergence. Airtel Africa announced on May 5, 2025, a landmark partnership with SpaceX to introduce Starlink Direct-to-Cell connectivity across its 14 markets, covering 174 million customers.

The service, expected to begin in 2026, will allow compatible smartphones to connect directly to satellites in areas without terrestrial coverage. For Airtel, the deal offered a way to extend service into remote regions where fibre and towers remain uneconomical, reinforcing its digital inclusion narrative.

The partnership signalled a shift in how operators think about coverage. Rather than replacing terrestrial networks, satellite connectivity increasingly complements them, filling gaps at the edges of the map.

A collision with no easy resolution

In 2025, African telecoms entered into a more complex phase of development. Pricing reforms restored investment capacity but deepened affordability concerns. Fibre investment surged, but mostly in urban and economically strategic corridors. 5G expanded rapidly, even as many consumers struggled to justify upgrading.

The collision of pricing, fibre, and 5G forced the industry to confront a central question: how to balance financial sustainability with inclusive growth. The answer remains unresolved.

What is clear is that 2025 marked a structural turning point. The era of easy subscriber growth is over. Africa’s telecom future will be shaped not just by how fast networks expand, but by who can afford to use them and who is left behind.