middle east and north african unique mobile subscribers exceed 350 million

By mid-2016, there were 339 million unique subscribers across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, accounting for 60% of the population. According to the latest GSMA intelligence data global subscriber penetration across middle east and north african countries are now are the second least penetrated region in the world.

However there is though huge variation between countries in the region, from the advanced Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states where 77% 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%. Subscriber growth rates will slow further over the next few years due to the more advanced markets approaching saturation, the challenge of growing penetration in the less developed markets, and unstable political and economic conditions in several markets that are currently showing little sign of improvement. As a result, subscriber penetration will reach only 63% by 2020, below the global average of 73%

In 2015, mobile technologies and services generated 4% of GDP in the MENA region, a contribution that amounted to more than $150 billion of economic value. In the period to 2020 this will increase to almost $200 billion (4.2% of GDP) as countries benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by increased take-up of mobile services