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The SABC reported that South African internet use has more than doubled in the past two years according to reports by Nielsen/Netratings, an internet media and market researcher.

Nielsen/NetRatings Analyst, Alex Burmaster, says that “while most developed markets in the northern hemisphere have seen a plateauing of growth over the last year or so, South Africa has seen phenomenal expansion – growing by around 50% in each of the last two years”.

He also says that “This type of growth is, of course, something we have seen across all markets as the internet has taken hold and moves away from being a niche activity to a very mainstream form of media and an integral part of life.�

The report also shows:

May 2007 saw 3.9 million active South African Unique Browsers – 121% more than in May 2005 (1.8 million). In the same period page impressions grew by 129% from 91 million in May 05 to 207 million in May 07.

Nielsen/Netratings report that the internet population is made up of 54% male and 45% female users. People aged between 25 and 34 make up the largest part of users, accounting for some 36% of the online population.

English is the most dominant language, being the language spoken primarily at home by around 2.1 million online South Africans (52% of the internet population). Afrikaans follows at 1.11 million (28% of the internet population).

I find these statistics interesting indeed. It is great news that more South Africans are are getting on-line, but do we know why?

Is the growth simply the result of the Internet becoming an “integral part of life”? Is it because Internet Access costs are becoming more and more affordable for the average home user or is it because people are jumping onto the social networking bandwagon?

I would surely like to know, wouldn’t you?

I reckon a major portion of the growth is simply because people want to connect and be seen. We are catching on to the idea that we can interact with others around the world who are like-minded by sharing our videos on YouTube, upload our personal images to Flikr and make more connections through Facebook and the like.

I also wonder how much of the growth is consumer related. Are people more confident to buy products on-line and can they easily find these products?

The most interesting of all of the statistics is that 2.1 million English speaking South Africans (52% of the internet population) and 1.11 million Afrikaans speaking South Africans (28% of the internet population) are accounted for, which gives a total of 80% of all South Africans. Who makes up the remaining 20%?

Source: SABC News

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• June 26th, 2007
• South Africa