Connectivity Is The New P&L

Usage Up by 21.5%. Revenue Down by 7.9%

South Africa's 2026 ICT numbers, read as an early-warning system for every African technology leader.

It’s ICT sector grew just 0.8 per cent last year, and every rand of that growth came from connectivity. Beneath that flat number is a volcanic reallocation of value. Mobile traffic rose 21.5 per cent while mobile revenue fell 7.9 per cent. SMS revenue collapsed 37.9 per cent. Fibre subscriptions jumped 22 per cent. Usage and revenue have decoupled, and the value operators are shedding is migrating to platforms, cloud and commerce, most of them global.

Our new deep-dive reads ICASA's 2026 State of the ICT Sector report as less a South African scorecard than an early-warning system. Every force in it - OTT substitution, the fibre pivot, resilience costs, streaming regulation - is arriving in Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Ghana on a one-to-three-year lag. It also documents a reversal regulators won't ignore: as the value migrated, Black representation in telecom leadership fell sharply - while broadcasting moved the other way.