MTN Group’s chief executive has pushed beyond the industry’s current affordability target for smartphones in Africa, saying the continent’s digital inclusion problem will not be solved unless device prices fall substantially below the $40 threshold that operators and the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) have publicly committed to.
Ralph Mupita, who also serves as Deputy Chair of GSMA, made the remarks during a wide-ranging interview at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2026, where he identified energy access, device affordability and fragmented regulation as the three structural barriers still holding back digital adoption across Africa.
“I think if we’re to really crack the problem we need to go much further south of $40 for everyday Africans to access a device,” Mupita said, signalling that the coalition target already announced at MWC is a floor, not a destination.
On energy, Mupita noted that only around 600 million of Africa’s estimated 1.3 to 1.4 billion people have a reliable connection to electricity at their home or workplace, describing it as both the continent’s biggest structural challenge and its most significant opportunity for off-grid innovation.
Earlier at MWC Barcelona, MTN joined five other African operators including Airtel Africa, Axian Telecom, Ethio Telecom, Orange and Vodacom to launch a GSMA Handset Affordability Coalition targeting a $40 smartphone as the near-term benchmark for closing the device ownership gap across the continent. Mupita’s interview suggested MTN regards that as an intermediate milestone rather than an endpoint.
Data presented at the GSMA’s Kigali congress last year showed Africa facing a 64 percent usage gap and a 9 percent coverage gap, with the International Telecommunication Union estimating at least $900 billion in infrastructure, innovation and inclusion investment will be needed to bridge them. Of Africa’s roughly 300 million mobile subscribers, only 130 million currently use 4G networks.
On regulation, Mupita said the continent’s patchwork of national frameworks raises the cost of doing business and needs to give way to a more consistent architecture across markets. Ghana, which is preparing to auction 5G spectrum with a target of 70 percent population coverage by March 2027, is among the markets watching the affordability and regulatory debates most closely as it moves toward next-generation connectivity.
