Telecoms8.06.2026

These are the ISPs that handle the most Internet traffic in South Africa

By Luis Monzon

Data from Cloudflare, one of the world’s largest Internet infrastructure companies, showed that Afrihost was the largest independent Internet service provider in South Africa by traffic.

Vodacom was the network operator with the most traffic in South Africa, accounting for 12.9% of all online activity in the country.

It was followed by Telkom, which accounted for 10.1% of all Internet traffic in South Africa, with MTN in the third place at 9.9%. Afrihost was fourth with 5.7%.

Together, the three top companies, which are also South Africa’s three main mobile network infrastructure operators, supported 32.9% of all Internet traffic in the country.

That meant nearly a third of all South African Internet traffic flowed through the networks of Vodacom, Telkom, and MTN.

These three telecommunications firms have embarked on multi-billion-rand operations to expand and strengthen their network coverage across South Africa.

Vodacom revealed that it planned to invest a further R12 billion in its South African network operations in the 2027 financial year, as reported in its annual financial results for the year ended 31 March.

In April, MTN said it would invest R21.8 billion in South Africa over the next three years to expand its local ICT infrastructure.

It said that the investment in network infrastructure and IT systems had significant multiplier effects, enabling growth across communities, industries and regions.

Telkom revealed in June that it increased its capital expenditure by 10.4% during the year ended 31 March 2026, with investments in fibre and mobile infrastructure topping R4.3 billion.

The three telecoms’ domination of Internet traffic also reflected South Africa’s increasing mobile Internet preference, where a large portion of the population accesses the Internet exclusively via mobile phones.

According to Cloudflare, 49.2% of all Internet traffic in South Africa is generated by mobile devices, while 50.8% was generated via desktop PC.

Operator	Percentage of Internet traffic
Vodacom	12.9%
Telkom	10.1%
MTN	9.9%
Afrihost	5.7%
NTT Data	5.5%
Rain	5.4%
Cell C	4.2%
Vox Telecom	3.7%
Huawei Cloud	3.0%
Herotel	2.8%

South African ISPs with the most traffic

Afrihost was followed by NTT Data, formerly Internet Solutions and Dimension Data, which accounted for 5.5% of all traffic in the country.

Rain and Cell C came in at 5.4% and 4.2% of Internet traffic in South Africa, indicating their size compared to larger rivals at the top of the list.

Fibre giant Vox Telecom accounted for 3.7% of all Internet traffic in the country, followed by Huawei’s cloud infrastructure business at 3%.

Herotel ranked 10th in Internet traffic, at 2.8%. The company announced in May that it had become the largest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) ISP in South Africa by the number of connected homes in Q1 2026.

It cited the most recent Africa Analysis FTTH Quarter Tracking report, which stated that Herotel had 284,850 connected FTTH homes, ahead of other major retail ISPs.

“The ranking includes connected homes across month-to-month and prepaid FTTH services, and excludes Herotel’s fixed wireless customer base, which stands at 52,094,” the company said.

Cloudflare’s data also ranked South African provinces by the percentage of Internet traffic they generate, with Gauteng far and away the leader in the country.

South Africa’s wealthiest province accounted for 61.3% of all local Internet traffic. It is also South Africa’s most populous province with the highest commercial density in the country.

It was followed by industrial and commercial hubs in the Western Cape at 22.2% and KwaZulu-Natal at 10.2%, home to the country’s largest and wealthiest cities, together with Gauteng.

Together, the three provinces accounted for 93.7% of South Africa’s Internet traffic, with no other province seeing above 1.3%. The Northern Cape accounted for the least at 0.2%.