In January 2024, the communications authority in Zimbabwe warned against using Starlink Internet Services. The Southern African country has less than 100k subscribers on Fibre and Fixed LTE each. At the same time, a significant portion of its citizens rely on mobile Internet, with 10.97 million subscriptions as of 2023 in a country with 16.67 million people.
Over the years, merchants on agency banking platforms have played an important role in bringing the banking system closer to people. They also played a key role during Nigeria's cash crunch in Q1 2023. Despite their importance, there have been reports of people using them to commit fraud, prompting the government's recent decision to have all POS agents registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission. As of March 2024, 2.69 million POS terminals had been deployed, including those used as payment options.
Nigeria was the seventh most populous nation in the world in 2020, with 206.1 million people. Projected to reach a population of 401.3 million by 2050, Nigeria will rank third after India (1st) and China (2nd). According to Institut national d'études démographiques' projections, Nigeria, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Egypt, Tanzania, and Kenya will be among the world’s top 20 most populous countries by 2050.
Between 2018 and 2021, adult literacy rates across African nations exhibited significant disparities. Seychelles and South Africa led with literacy rates of 96% and 95%, respectively, indicating a high proportion of literate adults. Conversely, Chad had the lowest literacy rate during this period.
These statistics underscore the uneven progress in educational attainment across Africa, highlighting the need for targeted interventions to improve literacy in lower-performing nations.
Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, has hit an all-time-high of $72,000 as of March 11, 2024, signifying a bull run in the crypto market.
As of 2021, there were 400 fully electric vehicles sold in Africa, which is expected to reach 2,200 by 2027. By 2027, Africa will only account for approximately 0.02% of fully electric vehicles sold worldwide.
Global sales of electric vehicles are projected to hit 13.33 million by 2027, up from 4.6 million in 2021, indicating a significant increase in the shift from petroleum product-powered vehicles to electronic ones.
FTX, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world, went bankrupt. Before its bankruptcy, the price of Bitcoin rose to $21,000 and fell back to $19,000 on November 7, 2022, when Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao revealed that his company would be selling off FTX's native coin, FTT.
In 2017, the price of Bitcoin suffered a hit when it crashed following a huge crypto boom that saw the price go from $400 in 2016 to $19,118 in 2017. Bitcoin went down to $3,000 in 2018, losing 447% of the value it had accumulated in 2017. By 2019, the market saw a positive trend with the price of bitcoin reaching $36,833.
The price of Bitcoin went from $46k in March 2020 to $17k in November of the same year, a 63% drop in eight months.
