41.9%: why your website has to be built mobile-first
Cameroon's internet access figures in early 2025 explain why a website should be designed for a phone first, on a constrained network.
The habit is to design for the desktop and adapt to mobile afterwards. In Cameroon the reverse order is not an aesthetic preference: it follows from the numbers.
The early-2025 numbers
Cameroon's population stood at 29.5 million in early 2025. Over that period:
- 25.5 million active cellular connections, or 86.3% of the population;
- 12.4 million internet users, or 41.9% penetration;
- 5.45 million social media identities, or 18.5% of the population and 35.4% of adults;
- 17.1 million people offline, or 58.1% of the population;
- a median fixed download speed of 9.48 Mbps.
The median age is 18: most of your customers grew up with a phone.
86.3%: the phone is the first point of contact
With 25.5 million cellular connections for 29.5 million inhabitants, the phone is the first point of contact with your audience. A site designed for the desktop forces visitors to zoom and scroll sideways, and regularly makes them leave before your first sentence. That gesture has a price: a lost customer.
9.48 Mbps: the page has to hold up on a constrained network
Median fixed speed is 9.48 Mbps, and 83.6% of mobile connections are broadband-capable. These are medians: half of your visitors are below them. A page of several megabytes then takes several seconds to appear, and the delay gets worse on entry-level devices.
In practice that means:
- compressing images and serving them in modern formats;
- keeping the first page under 1 MB;
- limiting fonts and tracking scripts, which pile up quickly;
- deferring anything not immediately visible.
58.1% offline: a website is not enough on its own
More than half the population does not use the internet. Designing as if everyone were connected leaves part of the market unserved. What works is a website that explains and reassures, a WhatsApp number reachable in one tap, and campaigns that also reach people offline.
What this changes in your project
A page that displays in under three seconds on a 3G connection. A phone number readable without zooming. Forms that work with a thumb. A path to WhatsApp in one tap. These are not details: they are the threshold below which you lose the majority of your audience.
What this does not change
Mobile-first is not an excuse for a careless site. A page stripped so thin that it omits the information that converts will convert less well than a complete page. The goal is speed and legibility, not a low byte count.