The Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Channels Television, Mr. John Momoh, has predicted that the level of internet penetration in Africa will rise to 50 per cent by 2025. Internet penetration in the continent currently stands at 16 per cent.
Momoh stated this while presenting an address titled: “Africa’s Media -The Future,” at a cocktail organised by members of KPMG Nigeria Alumni held in Lagos recently.
According to the ace broadcaster, the number of internet users would rise to 600 million by 2025 from its current figure of 167 million. Also, while citing a recent global report, he forecast the number of smart phone users in Africa would increase from 67 million to 360 million by 2025.
“The total mobile subscriptions count in Africa was 851.13 million at the end of the second quarter of 2014. Ovum forecasts that Africa’s mobile subscription will exceed one billion during 2016 and reach 1.23 billion by the end of 2019.
“Africa’s mobile broadband subscription count will rise from its previous count of 26.5 million at the end of 2010 to 950 million at the end of 2019,” Momoh added.
Spurred by infrastructural investments, improved connectivity and affordability, positive government interventions, as well as the spread of mobility, a dynamic African digital media landscape was rapidly evolving, Momoh quoted a global IT market intelligence firm, the International Data Corporation (IDC), to have stated.
“The IDC believes that the future remains bright for the continent, although key challenges such as low propensity to pay for applications and content as well as lack of ubiquitous high speed infrastructure continues to hamper progress and will take a while to resolve,” he added.
Earlier, in her presentation titled:”Future of the Media and Entertainment Industry in Africa,” the Managing Director/CEO, Ebony Life Television ,Mo Abudu, identified factors changing the face of the media industry to include increased efforts to attract and manage audiences, the need to customise content to target audience, need for more sustainable value chainmodels, creation of authentic content across platforms for the consumer.
She disclosed that cinema screens in Nigeria estimated at 111, adding that the Nigerian film industry is the third most valuable in the world in terms of number of films.
“The Nigerian film industry generated $178 million in 2013. It is projected to generate $258 million by 2018 Piracy and lack of sufficient skilled labour remains a challenge,” she added.
She predicted that pay TV revenues in Sub-Saharan Africa will reach $6.22 billion in 2020, up from $3.54 billion in2014 – “Excluding South Africa, pay TV revenues will climb from $0.83 billion in 2010 to $1.73 billion in 2014 and $4.12 billion in 2020. For Kenya, In 2013, total television revenue reached $323 million, 13.3 per cent more than 2012, with the figure mainly made up of advertising revenues,” she also stated.