Middle East/North Africa Mobile Broadband at 40%, Growing to 61% by 2020

By mid-2016, there were 339 million unique subscribers across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, accounting for 60 percent of the population, according to GSMA Intelligence.

By mid-2016, mobile broadband (3G and above) accounted for more than 40 percent of connections, up from just under 30 percent in 2014.

Growth in mobile broadband connections over the next five years will be relatively rapid: 61 percent of total connections will be mobile broadband by 2020, GSMA Intelligence predicts, up from the current 40 percent.

The number of smartphone connections has more than doubled over the last three years to reach 263 million in the second quarter of 2016, accounting for 42 percent of total connections in the region.

MENA will see the second fastest growth in smartphone adoption of any region over the next few years (behind Sub-Saharan Africa), bringing smartphone adoption to 65 percent by 2020, largely closing the gap on the global average.

There is though huge variation between countries in the region, from the advanced Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states where 77 percent of the population on average are mobile subscribers, to some of the African Arab states such as Comoros, Djibouti and Somalia where subscriber penetration is less than 30 percent.

Subscriber penetration will reach 63 percent by 2020, below the global average of 73 percent.