Mobile penetration surges to 95 percent in southern Africa

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mobile phone
mobile phone

Mobile penetration has grown in the southern African region from a mere 2 percent in 2000 to 95 percent in 2014, a regional information technology association has said.
mobileAddressing a regional telecom meeting in Windhoek, chairman of the Southern African Telecommunications Association (SATA) Feitjie Veldskoen said most citizens in the region are using information technology products.
SATA held its three-day 35th annual conference in Windhoek from Wednesday until Friday. It was attended by participants from Angola, Zambia, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia.
Veldskoen also said the information technology industry is one of the rising biggest employers and contributes to the gross domestic product.
“ICT has a huge and positive impact on economic growth as it has the potential to make supply chains more efficient, offer richer collaboration, make financial transactions faster, and more dynamic pricing and transparent processes,” she said.
She added that ICT can accelerate the flow of goods and services across SADC national borders, underpinned by effective competition as well as to stimulate and improve trade by connecting people and places previously not connected.
Veldskoen said while there is growth in the information technology sector, the biggest challenge, however, is still the development of infrastructure and access to rural communities.
In addition, Veldskoen said wrong use of information technology has negatively impacted societies and that governments should take steps to deal with both wrong use of ICT and cyber crimes. Enditem.

Source: Xinhua

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