19 June 2007

South African internet usage has surged over the past two years, a report by global internet media and market research company Nielsen//NetRatings has found.

The research report released last week, titled South Africa's Exploding Internet, shows that the number of South African unique browsers has increased from 1.8-million in May 2005 to 3.8-million in May 2007, an increase of 121%.

During the same period, the number of page impressions grew by 129% from 91-million to 207-million.

South Africans' ability to gain access to affordable internet connectivity has been given a boost in recent times, with the incumbent operator, Telkom offering ADSL and broadband, cellular operators like Vodacom and MTN offering 3G and HSDPA access and other companies like Sentech and iBurst offering wireless broadband. The second-network operator Neotel is also expected to offer similar services once it is fully operational.

"In terms of the number of people using the internet, the most developed markets in the northern hemisphere have seen a plateauing of growth over the last year or so. In contrast, South Africa has seen phenomenal expansion – growing by around 50% in each of the last two years," says Nielsen//NetRatings analyst Alex Burmaster.

"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 majority of the internet population speaks English and the vast majority of online content is English.

While the South African internet is experiencing huge growth in this area, Burmaster adds that the opportunity for hyper-audience growth in the future lies in targeting African language speakers.

The research report has found the following, regarding the demographics of South African internet surfers:

• The internet population is split 54% male (2.15-million people), 45% female (1.79-million people).
• At 1.42-million people, 25-34 year olds are the most dominant age group – accounting for 36% of the online population - closely followed by 35-49 year olds (1.37 -million: 35%).
• English is the most dominant language - being the language spoken primarily at home by around 2.10-million online South Africans (52% of the internet population). Afrikaans follows at 1.11-million (28% of the internet population).

Burmaster says that the South African internet population is more concentrated around the 25-49 year olds, unlike other English speaking internet nations.

"In South Africa this group makes up around seventy percent of the internet population compared to less than 50% in the UK, around 45% in Australia and 40% in the US," he explains.

SouthAfrica.info reporter

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	The number of South Africans enjoying competitively priced access to the internet, uninterrupted connections and broadband access is growing steadily (Image: Sentech)

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	Nielsen//NetRatings

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