Africa and Middle East Telecoms - boom or bust

Synopsis

The reality for Africa - a continent of some fifty-plus countries and almost one billion people - is that there is a wide range of very different cases. The countries most affected by the crisis are those with economies that depend heavily on resources exports, like Botswana (diamonds) and Equatorial Guinea (oil) - and other oil exporting countries such as Gabon, Angola, Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria also don't fare too well. Middle Eastern countries however have not suffered so much but the effects have certainly been felt. The countries that have suffered most are generally those with the most open economies. Countries such as Yemen or Syria have registered very little change, if any. Iraq and Lebanon have continued to grow because they were coming from very low rates due to past political turmoil. Qatar is so immensely wealthy and its rate of growth so high that a considerable drop still left it at over 11%.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. Africa
  • 2.1 Focus on East Africa: Mobile market
  • 2.2 Focus on East Africa: Internet and broadband market
• 3. The Middle East
• 4. The crisis and the Middle East mobile market
  • 4.1 Turkey
  • 4.2 UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
  • 4.3 Israel
• 5. Related reports

• Table 1 – African countries least and most affected by the global economic crisis
• Table 2 – Mobile market penetration in selected East African countries – March 2009
• Table 3 – Internet user penetration in selected East African countries – December 2008
• Table 4 – Middle East GDP growth and GDP per capita – 2008 - 2010
• Table 5 – Top and bottom five Middle East countries by GDP growth – 2009
• Table 6 – Middle East mobile subscriber annual change and penetration – 2008
• Table 7 – Middle East Mobile subscriber growth – selected countries – Q1 2009
• Table 8 – Turkish mobile subscribers by operator – 2007 - 2009
• Table 9 – Israeli mobile operators – data and content revenue as a percentage of total revenue – 2005 - 2008

• Exhibit 1 – New fibre optic submarine cables in East Africa