Africa’s $30 smartphone goal is becoming harder to achieve

Africa’s mobile internet problem is no longer only whether a network reaches people. Increasingly, it is whether they can afford the phone needed to use it.

Across the continent, operators have spent years building towers, laying fibre and expanding 3G and 4G coverage. The networks are there. In Senegal, 4G reaches about 97% of the population; in Uganda, 98%; and in Nigeria, more than 80%. Yet millions of people living under those networks remain offline—not because there is no signal…