CIO Africa: Removing Barriers To IoT Adoption In Africa

By Feraz Ahmed, CEO at Hayo

From agriculture to logistics, many use cases in Africa require support for thousands of devices across wide geographic regions.

As digital transformation accelerates across Africa, Mobile Network Operators (MNO) have a massive opportunity to launch, grow and target IoT solutions to specific verticals. It is no longer a question of “if” IoT will be deployed across Africa, the question is just “when”. Africa’s mobile network infrastructure has rapidly developed over the last two to three years and now MNOs have an opportunity to add a growing number of enterprise services to their offering and monetise their network investments.

According to the GSMA, licensed cellular IoT connections in Sub-Saharan Africa are projected to nearly double from 27 million in 2023 to 51 million by 2030. South Africa is expected to contribute over 50% of this total. This expansion is fuelled by the rollout of 4G and 5G networks and government-led smart city initiatives.

This growth is not going happen overnight. MNOs have to recognise the opportunity and have a path forward that is fast, efficient, and delivers return on investment. So far, most MNOs, even in developed markets, have focused largely on serving consumer subscribers with the imbalance being as much as 70% of revenues coming from consumer services, and only 30% coming from enterprise.