Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Nigeria, visiting the Co-creation Hub Nigeria (CcHUB) .Facebook
Facebook has 139 million users a month in Africa in 2018, 98% of whom connected via mobile.
The figures released by the world’s largest social media network confirm trends that Africa is a mobile-only continent. Facebook hasn’t released figures for a number of years, and hasn’t broken down these figures by country nor any other demographic.
Africa has a population of 1.1 billion but it is expected to rise to 4 billion by the end of this century. “Four in 10 of the world’s people will be African by the end of this century,” according to Unicef’s Generation 2030/Africa Report.
Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to have 500 million cellphone subscribers by 2020 and is the fastest-growing region in terms of mobile uptake, according to the GSM Association. It said is also have more than half of all the world’s mobile money services.
Mobile money has boomed in Africa this year, with M-Pesa announcing deals with PayPal and Western Union. Two of the largest cellular operators – MTN and Orange – announced a joint venture for a mobile wallet that operates across the networks.
Facebook has had an annus horribilis after revelations about Cambridge Analytica broke in March, forcing Mark Zuckerberg to admit the company “didn’t do enough to prevent abuse” and “it was my mistake.”
[“source=forbes]