Will Africa Be the Next Frontier for Internet Innovations?

The disruptive nature of the Internet and the innovations sprung from its fertile ground have been the dominating theme of the 21st century so far. The trend will likely continue in the years to come. Today globally there are about 3 billion internet users (half from China with its population size), but the number could easily double in a couple of years, counting in mobile populations. Underdeveloped areas with large population concentration are expected to have the fastest growth.

Looking back, the internet market in China truly started booming with innovations only after Year 2000, when the Trans-Pacific Fiber Optic Cable Network was built and put into service (See TriStrategist’s 2013 blog on China’s Internet and Mobile Market). Before that, the networks and servers there were so slow to the outsiders that few from the West ever heard of any internet startup from China. Among the early innovators, Alibaba was founded in 1999 and Baidu was founded in 2000. Good timing seemed to have definitely played some roles in the success of these Chinese internet companies. Since then, the internet and mobile infrastructure in China have leapfrogged many of the western countries and enabled many more innovative startup companies, such as TenCent (the developer of WeChat) and Xiaomi (today’s largest smartphone maker in China), to mushroom and blossom onto the global stage of internet and mobile competitions in a few short years. As we know today Alibaba is now a $150 billion company and Xiaomi valued at $45 billion.

Looking at the remaining continents in the global village, Africa has long been neglected as the poor and unstable backcountry. Yet things are quietly changing. With 16% of its one billion population online, it already has the fastest growth of new mobile subscribers in 2014, surpassing even China and India. Companies like Huawei have long been working there to build telecommunication infrastructure and sell low-cost mobile phones. In recent years, Google has made huge investments with Google Blimps, satellites and fiber optic cable network to link Africa to its global internet expansion plan (Also see earlier blog on Google’s Disruptive Innovations). Late 2014, Google announced another $60 million investment for a new undersea fiber optic cable network from U.S. to Brazil, allowing data transfer speed up to 64 terabits per second. By its completion in 2016, it will ensure Google’s internet services to run smoothly all the way to the southern end of the African continent. Its Brazilian partner plans to directly connect Brazil to Africa via undersea fiber cable network at the same timeframe. With these factors and the attentions nowadays from big global companies and investors to the untapped markets, Africa is definitely posing as the next exciting frontier for many internet innovations in the coming years.

Although the current internet-enabled GDP is still very low in most of the African countries, timing seems to start favoring Africa. Following China’s internet growth model, African continent will benefit from the leapfrog in infrastructure building with even newer technologies and faster networks. Its huge young populations and growing middle-class are ripe for mobile innovations which can bypass the earlier web-based internet models. The disruptions have already been happening in finance, education, health, agriculture and many other areas. The economies are growing more rapidly with internet and mobile services in many countries there. The stability of the political situations is also improving with the information access getting more easily and freely, and the education level edging up.

We should be very optimistic that the world is evidently becoming a better place with internet and technology innovations.