Majda Lahlou Kassi doesn’t do vague keynote language. As Ericsson’s Vice President and Head of Customer Unit West and Southern Africa, she’s spent enough time in actual deployment conversations to know that “digital transformation” means nothing without specifics. So when she talks about empowerment through connectivity, she’s citing mobile banking rollouts, remote healthcare extensions, and pay-as-you-go solar systems powered by mobile payments, not abstract aspirations about bridging divides.
In a recent sit-down, Lahlou Kassi walked through Ericsson’s current positioning across the continent, covering 5G deployment timelines, sustainability commitments that go beyond press release greenwashing, and the company’s attempts to shift from infrastructure vendor to something resembling an ecosystem partner. The conversation touched on youth training programs, innovation hubs, public-private policy alignment, and the commercial realities that still determine where networks get built and when.
The empowerment framing isn’t new, but Lahlou Kassi grounds it in tangible examples. Ericsson’s extended partnership with MTN on Mobile Money is expanding digital payments, savings, loans, and insurance to millions who’ve been locked out of formal financial systems. She references meeting young African entrepreneurs who said connectivity didn’t just open market access, it shifted their confidence to build and scale ideas. That human-level detail matters, even if it sits alongside corporate objectives that benefit from expanded network usage and data consumption.
5G rollout follows commercial logic, not developmental rhetoric
On 5G, Lahlou Kassi’s realistic about where deployment makes sense first. High-density urban centres, innovation hubs, and industrial verticals like mining, ports, and logistics get priority because that’s where demand and ROI align. According to Ericsson’s own mobility data, 5G subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa doubled from five million in 2023 to 11 million in 2024, with projections hitting 400 million by 2030. That’s aggressive growth, but it’s selective. The implication is that 5G spreads outward as commercial viability follows, which is pragmatic but less universalist than typical telecoms messaging suggests.
What’s notable is her acknowledgment that African operators aren’t waiting for global deployment blueprints. They’re designing 5G models around local affordability thresholds, energy constraints, and demand patterns. Ericsson’s role in that process remains primarily as equipment supplier, but the framing suggests the company’s positioning for a future where African innovation drives its own trajectory rather than importing solutions designed elsewhere.
Sustainability backed by actual hardware, not just commitments
The sustainability conversation has more technical substance than usual corporate climate talk. Ericsson’s 6626 Radio consolidates three sectors and multiple bands into one unit, reportedly cutting site-level energy consumption by up to 50 percent. That matters when operators are expanding coverage without wanting energy costs to scale proportionally. In Benin, Ericsson and MTN deployed fully solar-powered rural sites that eliminate diesel dependency, complemented by lithium-ion batteries for consistent off-grid service delivery.
These aren’t pilot projects staged for sustainability reports. They’re commercially deployed infrastructure solving real operational problems in markets where grid electricity is unreliable or prohibitively expensive. Lahlou Kassi notes that many African operators now place energy KPIs and sustainability targets at the centre of network planning, driven as much by cost considerations as by customer and regulatory expectations.
‘Africa First’ tested by where R&D actually happens
The “Africa First” positioning gets more concrete when Lahlou Kassi discusses what’s being built locally. Ericsson’s opened an R&D centre in Cairo focused on AI and cloud software, and there’s a technology hub and 5G Innovation Lab coming to Nigeria to give local developers and startups real network environments for testing. The AIR 3284 triple-band radios being deployed with MTN Nigeria were reportedly designed with African network realities in mind.
Still, “designed for Africa” often translates to “optimised for cost and harsh conditions” rather than “developed on the continent by African engineers.” There’s a meaningful difference between localising solutions and genuinely decentralising R&D capacity. Ericsson’s Graduate Program pulls young talent into hands-on training and long-term career tracks, creating direct employment pathways rather than just upskilling people and hoping markets absorb them. The company’s also working with the Wot-if? Trust in Diepsloot, introducing 11 to 14-year-olds to programming and digital technologies as early-stage pipeline development.
Whether these initiatives translate into substantive shifts in where innovation happens, or remain capacity-building exercises that feed into global corporate structures, is the question that “Africa First” rhetoric doesn’t quite resolve.
Policy alignment matters as much as infrastructure deployment
Lahlou Kassi’s more forthcoming than most on the importance of public-private partnerships in shaping rollout timelines. Ericsson’s working with the African Telecommunications Union on spectrum recommendations that make 4G and 5G deployment easier and more affordable. Through the Smart Africa Digital Academy, the company’s sharing technical knowledge with policymakers and regulators so frameworks can keep pace with AI, IoT, and next-gen connectivity demands.
That’s pragmatic. Policy lag genuinely constrains deployment speed, and operators benefit when governments understand what they’re trying to build. Some markets are moving quickly with broadband plans and regulatory reforms, others less so, but Lahlou Kassi frames the overall trajectory as positive. The policy decisions being made now will determine how quickly Africa can unlock AI, cloud services, and digital public infrastructure at scale.
Ecosystem enabler or infrastructure vendor with better messaging?
The longer-term pitch is about Ericsson shifting from infrastructure provider to ecosystem enabler. The Nigeria 5G Innovation Lab is meant to give startups, developers, and universities access to real 5G environments, moving concepts toward commercialisation. Mobile Money APIs are being opened up so developers can build fintech products that plug directly into operator platforms. Lahlou Kassi talks about moving from “a company that connects Africa to the world” to “a partner that helps Africa create for the world.”
That’s aspirational, and the R&D centres, innovation labs, and developer support programs suggest directional movement. But the underlying economics haven’t fundamentally shifted. Ericsson remains a supplier selling equipment and services to operators, who deploy them based on commercial returns. Profitability calculations, not developmental priorities still shape connectivity rollout, and that structural reality persists regardless of how well-designed the sustainability commitments or innovation partnerships are.
Lahlou Kassi’s presentation is more substantive than typical corporate positioning. She’s citing deployment numbers, named partnerships, concrete energy efficiency metrics, and acknowledging that 5G won’t arrive everywhere simultaneously. That’s unusual in an industry where transformation language tends to float free of measurable commitments. But the gap between empowerment narrative and infrastructure economics remains visible, even when the initiatives themselves, solar-powered Benin sites, Cairo R&D centres, youth training programs, represent genuine investments in Africa’s digital capacity rather than just margin extraction on equipment sales.