Chinese technology permeates nearly every level of the East African mobile technology stack with the notable exception of operating systems that are still dominated by Google and Apple, according to a post by Kenya-based technology analyst Michael Kimani. While Kimani focused his analysis on the East African market, the situation is pretty much in other regions across the continent.

With respect to cable connections, the Chinese-funded PEACE undersea fiber-optic trunk cable that’s part of the Digital Silk Road and will connect Pakistan with Djibouti and South Africa in 2021 will be vastly larger in scale than satellite initiatives sponsored by Google and Facebook.