The new digital landscape in Africa.

Indeed, we are still at the early stage when it comes to understand and appropriate  the new IT Convergence in Africa, but at Connectikpeople.co, soon #Retinknow we are particularly seduced by the leapfrogging capabilities of young African people when it comes to appropriate these emerging technologies.

From the north to south, through the west and center, the digital landscape is different in terms of infrastructures; cost per megabit;  improved connectivity and affordability; positive government interventions; the spread of mobility; propensity to pay for applications and content.

But overall, it is encouraging to observe increased infrastructure investments (landing of undersea fiber-optic cables connecting Africa to the rest of the world; increasing bandwidth capacity; investments in EDGE, 3G, 4G and Wi-fi networks); the high digital appetite for social media, digital magazines, native search, ecommerce, smart devices with intuitive interfaces, content-rich applications, and faster connectivity capabilities.

This means inter alia that, the growth of digital media has had a positive impact on businesses in Africa in terms of cost reduction, increased employee productivity, and improved communication and information sharing.

However app and content developers are still seeking better compensation/business models from dominant players such as telcos.

IDC's 'Assessment and Outlook of the Digital Media Ecosystem in Africa' (IDC #CEMA21443) provides assessment of the digital media landscape across the continent. The study looks at the key drivers enabling the digital environment and assesses a number of key challenges facing the industry.