Starlink remains market leader in Sub-Saharan Africa

Starlink has remained the market leader in Sub-Saharan Africa outpacing competitors in terms of performance and depth of impact according to a Q1 2025 Speedtest data by Ookla analysis of satellite providers in Africa. Starlink rules the market in terms of speed.

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Read the full analysis, based on Speedtest Intelligence.

Some high-level takeaways include:

• Starlink consistently outperforms terrestrial ISPs in Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of download speed (exceeding 40 Mbps in Q1 2025 in most countries where it’s available), but latency remains high.
• Botswana, Eswatini, Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Ghana lead the continent in median download speeds: Starlink users in these countries experienced a download speed of around and above 75 Mbps in Q1 2025.
• In contrast, speeds in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Kenya, and Madagascar were below 50 Mbps. Nevertheless, these speeds are still much more than double those of terrestrial networks in Q1 2025 in most countries.
• The deployment of new local Points of Presence (PoP) has considerably reduced the delay in some East African countries, like Kenya, to below 60 ms.
• Starlink’s entry into the African market has improved access to broadband services, particularly in Nigeria and Kenya, where it has become competitive.

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