The Suburban business units supply next generation IP connectivity solutions primarily to the West African market.  Even though connectivity in Nigeria has increased to over 800% in fibre optic based internet bandwidth thanks to Suburban, West Africa is still considered a major growth area in telecommunications with additional growth still expected in mobile penetration. Data services are also in nascent stages of development.

As competition continues to intensify, mobile subscription growth remains solid. Mobile subscription numbers in West Africa are now over 120 million. Nigeria with over 65 million subscribers is also now the largest mobile market in Africa, well ahead of South Africa and Egypt with approximately 50 million and 45 million subscribers respectively. Between them these three countries comprise over 42% of the subscription market.

Overall subscription penetration in West Africa is still lower than 30% within the region and represents a significant opportunity for investors.

There has been a significant rise in 3.5G adoption and market research analysts of the World Cellular Information Service (WCIS) are predicting over 56 million HSPA subscribers in Africa by 2013 and it can be assumed that approximately 30% (17 million) of that growth will come from West Africa. While market activity does not indicate these projections are aggressive, the WCIS analyst data contradicts that of other research analysts such as BMI, ITU and HSBC who predict even less growth, with an approximate number of 5 million broadband subscribers by 2013. 

The economic downturn is likely to eventually have an impact on the market, with slower economic growth putting pressure on consumer spend.  There might be a faster slowdown in net-additions of mobile subscribers and a dip in roaming revenues for operators, while consumers begin to leverage data services for communications.

Nigeria will remain one of the top 20 emerging markets in the world in terms of net-additions of subscribers, while also remaining one of the top 20 markets in terms of growth – alongside Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal.

As a supplier of wholesale bandwidth and connectivity services, the predicted growth in the data market means a promising future for the business of Suburban.. Analysts have also predicted that the non-voice revenue growth and growth in data subscribers has been fuelled by the growth of internet/email related devices such as PCs and PDAs. This is also a trend that is expected to continue well into the future.