Strong website growth in SA

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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The Online Publishers’ Associations (OPA) recently released their Internet usage statistics for the last quarter of 2009, and according to the OPA the number of total unique browsers during this period increased by 52%.

The total unique browsers across all OPA registered websites in the last quarter of 2009 was 14.9 million, up from 9.8 million a year ago.  For local only browsers the growth was equally impressive, with a 53% increase – from 4.9 million in Q4 2008 to 7.5 million in Q4 2009.

According to World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck the number of South African Internet users has passed the 5 million mark for the first time recently, finally breaking through the 10% mark in Internet penetration for the country.  “The headline data shows that the Internet user base grew by 15% last year, from 4.6 million to 5.3 million, and is expected to grow at a similar rate in 2010,” says Goldstuck.

While the two sets of data do not correspond – 7.5 million unique browsers from OPA websites and only 5.3 million Internet users according to Goldstuck – the measurement criteria may explain the difference. 

A unique browser on OPA websites is measured via an Internet browser cookie, and a single Internet user can therefore be counted various times over a three month period using different computers, Internet browsers or even because they cleaned their Internet files & cookies in this period.

The two sets of statistics however confirm that South Africa’s online environment is showing strong growth, fuelled by increased broadband penetration and improved access to Internet connected devices.

Strong website growth in SA << Discussion