The cost of an entry-level smartphone is a significant burden for the poorest fifth of people in Sub-Saharan Africa, equivalent to 76% of a month’s income. According to the GSMA, the $30 and $20 price points that were meant to make smartphones more affordable are now out of reach due to rising memory costs.
Memory prices more than doubled between the third quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, and then rose by a further 80 to 90% in the second quarter. This increase in cost has made it difficult for low-income individuals to afford smartphones, with the same handset costing the poorest 20% of people 44% of their monthly income across low- and middle-income countries.
The GSMA’s State of Mobile Internet Connectivity report notes that bringing entry-level smartphones down to $30 could have made them affordable to almost 1.6 billion people already living within mobile broadband coverage, and a $20 phone to about 2.2 billion. However, the current prices have put these targets out of reach.
The global usage gap is estimated to be 3.1 billion people, with the rate of new users slowing down. In 2025, 160 million people came online, down from 190 million the year before. In Africa, the usage gap is approximately 906 million people, according to the GSMA and the Partnership for Digital Access in Africa.
In March, the GSMA’s Handset Affordability Coalition chose 6 African countries to pilot affordable 4G smartphones in 2026, with the goal of making devices available in the $30 to $40 range. However, the surge in memory costs has made this range “increasingly difficult to attain,” and the coalition has asked governments to reduce or remove taxes and import duties on entry-level 4G phones.
The GSMA is calling on chipset and memory manufacturers to increase the availability of affordable components for entry-level handsets. They expect global smartphone shipments to see their largest annual decline on record, driven by the collapse of the sub-$100 segment. Governments also have a role to play in making smartphones more affordable by cutting device taxes.
Until memory prices come down or governments reduce taxes, the $30 and $20 phones will remain out of reach for many low-income individuals. The GSMA’s country report on Rwanda has made the case for cutting device taxes to suppress adoption, but such changes will take time to implement. It will be some time before these changes have an effect, and the GSMA will continue to monitor the situation.
