Smartphones Cost 76% of Monthly Income in sub-Saharan Africa

The cost of an entry-level internet-enabled smartphone has risen to the equivalent of 76 percent of average monthly income in Sub-Saharan Africa, putting access to mobile internet beyond the reach of millions of low-income consumers across the region.

The development, contained in the Global System for Mobile Communications Association’s (GSMA) State of Mobile Internet Connectivity (SOMIC) Report 2026, comes as rising memory and chipset costs push up prices of affordable smartphones and threaten efforts to close Africa’s digital divide.

The report showed that while billions of people now live within mobile broadband coverage, a large proportion remain offline because they cannot afford an internet-enabled device.

Globally, about 3.4 billion people do not use mobile internet despite more than 90 per cent of them living in areas covered by mobile broadband networks. GSMA identified handset affordability as the single biggest barrier to mobile internet adoption across surveyed low- and middle-income countries.

For the poorest 20 per cent of people in low- and middle-income countries, an entry-level smartphone represented about 44 percent of average monthly income at the end of 2025. The burden was significantly higher in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the equivalent cost reached 76 percent.

The pressure is expected to intensify as the cost of components used in low-cost smartphones continues to rise. According to GSMA, memory prices more than doubled between the third quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 before rising by another 80 to 90 percent in the second quarter of 2026.

The increase is already affecting Africa’s smartphone market. Research firm Omdia reported that smartphone shipments across Africa declined seven per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026, while shipments in the crucial sub-$100 segment fell by 34 percent, or almost three million units.

Omdia also reported that average smartphone selling prices in Africa increased by $41 year-on-year to $202 during the quarter. Nigeria recorded an 11 per cent decline in shipments, with higher prices contributing to weaker consumer demand and delayed device purchases.

The development could have wider implications for Nigeria, where smartphones have become a major gateway to banking, e-commerce, education, social media, government services and other digital platforms.

GSMA research released earlier in 2026 found that affordability remains the main obstacle to smartphone adoption in Africa. Its analysis of markets including Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Togo, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo found that Africa’s mobile usage gap stood at 64 per cent in 2024, despite significant expansion in mobile broadband coverage.

The latest affordability challenge is also emerging at a time when access to smartphones is becoming increasingly important to participation in artificial intelligence-enabled services.

GSMA warned that the combination of expensive devices and rapidly expanding AI applications could create a new divide between people who can afford to participate in the digital economy and those who cannot. The association said affordable smartphones would be essential for ensuring that the benefits of AI reach developing economies.

The association has called on chipset and memory manufacturers, device makers, mobile operators, policymakers and financial institutions to work together to reduce the cost of entry-level devices.

GSMA estimates that, before the recent surge in component prices, reducing the cost of an entry-level smartphone to $30 could make devices affordable to almost 1.6 billion additional people, while a $20 price point could extend affordability to about 2.2 billion people living within mobile broadband coverage.

Industry efforts to address the problem have included proposals for minimum specifications for affordable 4G smartphones. In 2025, GSMA and major African operators including MTN, Airtel, Orange, Vodacom, Axian Telecom and Ethio Telecom proposed baseline requirements for entry-level 4G devices as part of the Handset Affordability Coalition.

However, the renewed increase in component costs is threatening to reverse some of the progress made through cheaper devices.

The impact extends beyond device manufacturers and consumers. A reduction in smartphone adoption could affect mobile operators, fintech companies, digital lenders, e-commerce platforms and other businesses whose services increasingly depend on smartphone-based internet access.

However, for Nigeria, where expanding broadband usage and digital financial services remain key components of the digital economy, sustained increases in handset prices could therefore become another barrier to wider digital participation.

GSMA has previously estimated that closing the global mobile internet usage gap could generate $3.5 trillion in additional GDP between 2023 and 2030, with more than 90 per cent of the potential benefits accruing to low- and middle-income countries.

The latest figures suggest that the challenge is no longer only about extending network coverage. With broadband infrastructure reaching increasingly large populations, the affordability of the device used to access those networks is becoming an equally important part of Nigeria and Africa’s connectivity equation.