The total African mobile subscription for the first quarter of 2015 stands at 910 million with 21 million new subscriptions added in the quarter, according to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report.

The report noted that in markets such as Africa there is multiple ownership of mobile numbers bloating the total number of subscriptions.

“The number of subscriptions exceeds the population in many countries. This is largely due to inactive subscriptions and multiple device ownership, for example - for business and private use, or to optimise pricing by using different operators for different calls,” reads the report.

The report also forecast that smartphone subscription would almost reach 80% by 2020, and this will be from Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

“This is due to greater affordability in developing markets such as Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa,” the report noted.

Ericsson also sees the continued use of 2G broadband in Africa by 2020, which will be in the majority due to low cost entry phones.

GFK last year predicted that feature phone sales in Middle East and Africa would still see strong growth in 2015.

Sales of feature phones would stand of$5.1 billion in the Middle East and $4.3 billion in Africa.

GFK also said that South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt will be in the top ten smartphone markets globally in 2015, while Kenya will have smartphone sale penetration of 67%.