The report presents Botswana Information and Communications Technology Statistics for the year 2020. It covers statistics relating to ICT infrastructure and services, as well as the overall contribution of the ICT sector to the economy.
According to the published data, both mobile cellular and fixed telephone subscriptions declined in 2020. Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions decreased by 5.2 percent or 3,792,157 in 2020 from 3,999,244 in 2019. Fixed telephone subscriptions recorded a slight decline of 1.3 percent from 141,896 in 2019 to 140,015 in 2020. The recorded decrease was probably due to reduced business activity as most companies were forced to close shop as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the period under review, telephone traffic, which comprises Domestic Calls, International Calls and Short Message Service (SMS) has a shown remarkable decline in tandem with what was obtained within the business world as the country slackened.
A total of 4,990.0 million minutes of domestic fixed to fixed telephone traffic occurred in 2020, a decline of 25.8 percent from 6,725.3 million minutes registered in 2019. Domestic fixed to mobile telephone traffic also decreased by 8.4 percent from 7,332.1 million minutes in 2019 to 6,715.8 million minutes in 2020.
The data shows that on net and off net mobile telephone traffic in minutes, however, went up by 43.6 percent and 20.3 percent respectively in 2020. On net mobile telephone traffic increased from 4,425.3 million minutes in 2019 to 6,356.8 million in 2020. Off net mobile telephone traffic went up from 587.2 million minutes in 2019 to 706.6 million in 2020. Mobile to fixed telephone traffic increased by 149.6 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year.
As was anticipated, International outgoing fixed telephone traffic decreased by 21.8 percent, from 750.4 million minutes recorded in 2019 to 586.5 million in 2020. International outgoing mobile telephone traffic also fell by 20.3 percent in 2020; from 40.5 million minutes in 2019 to 32.3 million.
Internet subscriptions, on the other hand, increased by 6.4 percent in 2020, from 2,027,515 registered in 2019 to 2,156,491. Most of this growth came from mobile Internet subscriptions which constituted 97.7 percent of total Internet subscriptions in 2020. The increased use of the Internet can be credited to organisations and individuals positively responding to social distancing measures by creating appropriate Internet-based options.
However, what is of greatest interest is the growing contribution of the sector to the country’s economy. The released data shows that at current prices, the sector contributed a value added of P5,6 billion, which was 3.1 percent of total Gross Domestic Product. In real terms (2006 prices), the sector’s contribution stood at P3,2 billion, which made up 3.6 percent of total GDP.
The contribution of the ICT sector has been growing steadily since 2006 when ICT contributed only 1.5 percent to the country’s GDP. Whilst the annual growth rate has been slowing down, overall contribution continues to grow with the growing GDP. As more investment is being channelled towards improving the telecommunication and postal services, it is anticipated that the rate of contribution to GDP will soon hit double digit figures.
This article was prepared by Data Collection & Analysis, a business research firm. Feedback or enquiries can be relayed to 76740658./ research@eastearnman.bw
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