Sub-Saharan Africa:
The reason Sekura is here.
Statistics from the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) report on The Mobile Economy, Sub-Saharan Africa, 2022 illustrates clearly the opportunity for growth across the African continent, and therefore the motivation for businesses such as Sekura.id.
SIM connection is forecast to grow from 917m to 1.09bn users between 2021 and 2025. Unique SIM IDs will peak at 615m in 2025, up from 551m in 2021. A third of that growth will come from Ethiopia and Nigeria alone. The connection will penetrate 89% of the population, with unique IDs of 50%.
Mobile Network Operator revenues are projected to rise from $46.6bn to $57.4bn by 2025. It is clear from these numbers that the future of mobile connectivity and usage is very positive for Africa.
Sekura.id entered the South African market in March 2023 with the mandate to introduce Mobile Identity and capture market share within Sub-Saharan Africa. This is not to imply that there are no industry players in the SA market.
What Sekura.id brings to this market, however, through its SAFr platform and relationship with Mobile Network Operators, is unique. Having signed contracts with all four major networks MTN, Vodacom, Cell C and Telkom, and having access to the SIM data in the networks through a single API is what makes Sekura.id stand out.
In addition, your writer has spent over 35 years in the clothing, retail, and banking industries in South Africa and Africa and understands the business problems which potential customers face.
South African Fraud Prevention Service statistics point to over 20,000 reported incidents of fraud in 2022, a 40% growth in 2021. The banking industry bore the brunt of 60% of these cases. Unofficial reports indicate that SIM swap fraud may be as high as R470m per annum in South Africa alone.
Any business which deals with consumers who possess a mobile device can benefit enormously from the proposition that Sekura.id delivers.
The business model embraces a partnership approach; whilst having a global reach and touching almost 2.7bn consumers through 75 MNOs in 22 countries, Sekura.id is a focused, niche business which delivers best through a number of partners such as Prove, GBG and Alvaria.
In South Africa, the team are creating similar relationships with a small group of local partners who already have existing relationships with banks, retailers, lenders, call centres and the like. There is much interest in mobile identity within the country, as there is in countries such as Uganda and Ghana. Working closely with partners and mobile operators, Sekura.id is on the verge of launching a pilot in Africa within weeks.
Sekura.id is creating world-leading Identity Rails for mobile identification. In doing so, and in the way the architecture and simplicity of execution have been designed, Sekura.id is also creating a SAFr place for all. Africa runs in our veins. Let’s make her proud and serve her people brilliantly
By Lawrence Twigg – Regional CEO (Sub-Saharan Africa)
