How will the African mobile sphere appear by the end of the decade? Will African life revolve around the smartphone? Curated by Erik Hersman (whiteafrican), Ken Banks (kiwanja), Rudy De Waele (m-trends.org), Mobile Trends 2020 Africa gathers the opinions of 28 entrepreneurs in order to shape a realistic overall idea.

Each individual provided approximately five main points, for a cumulative total of over 130 for the report. Interestingly, the majority of the predictions align with those from Rudy De Wales “Mobile Trends 2020” (global) presentation from two years ago. Could African mobile web access, capabilities, costs, health apps, payment systems, and share of local companies be on par with the global mean in just 9 years? Probably, on a country-by-country basis, but most likely not overall. Still, it is interesting to look at recurring trends that came up in the recent presentation. Nearly half of responses included a direct reference to increased mobile web access. Nearly as many predicting a evolved mobile payment systems. Also widely predicted are a prevalence of health and learning applications along with vastly lower data costs. The break-out is below:

Themes mentioned, by # of mentions:

~13: web access

~12: banking/payments

~8: lower access costs, mlearning, data vs. voice, mhealth

~6: mobile-centric living, local companies, apps

~5: operators, mcommerce/business, mobile penetration

~4: language issues, more features

~3: authoring, egovernment

~2: Android, mobile media, mobile gaming, ad-hoc networking, regional integration

~1: human rights, manufacturers, renewable energy, cloud, wildlife protection