Internet and broadband in numbers
It is well known that South Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to the number of Internet and broadband subscribers. South Africa is currently ranked 110th in the world in Internet penetration rates, and does not compare much better when it comes to broadband subscriber numbers.
This raises the question of exactly how many Internet subscribers South Africa has, and how many broadband connections there are in South Africa.
New research from Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of research firm World Wide Worx, sheds light on the Internet market in South Africa. The firm’s latest report, Internet Access in South Africa 2008, estimates that there are around 4.6 million Internet users in the country.
This figure is slightly lower than the Online Publisher Association’s statistics which indicates that an average number of 5.4 million unique South African browsers visited local websites during the last quarter of 2008. During October 2008 over six million unique SA visitors were recorded visiting local websites, but it should be noted that a single users using multiple machines would be recorded multiple times.
When it comes to broadband access, Goldstuck said that there were a total of 1.35 million broadband connections at the end of 2008. This number consisted of 558 000 ADSL lines and 794 000 wireless subscribers.
Many broadband subscribers, however, have two or more broadband services, and Goldstuck estimates that the number of unique broadband users is around 1.1 million.
Small and medium business growth
One of the biggest Internet access growth areas is the small and medium sized business (SME) market. In this market ADSL has become the preferred connectivity method, surpassing dial-up some time ago.
According to the World Wide Worx research ADSL is used by 62% of SMEs to connect to the Internet, significantly higher than dial-up (9.5%) or wireless (10.5%). Goldstuck pointed out that the percentage of SMEs using dial-up access to connect to the Internet declined from 63% in 2003 to less than 10% in 2008, giving a clear indication that ADSL is replacing dial-up in this market.
There are, however, still 700 000 dial-up users in South Africa, but this number is likely to decline rapidly over the next few years as users migrate to broadband services.
Cellphone-based Internet access hype
Goldstuck said that while many media reports are creating hype surrounding the use of cellphones to access the Internet – often quoting figures as high as 10 million – the reality looks vastly different.
Goldstuck’s research suggests that there were only 180 000 users in 2008 who used their cellphones as a primary method of connecting to the Internet. According to Goldstuck this figure is likely to climb to 450 000 in 2009 and jump to 1.6 million in 2013. This jump will be facilitated by more advanced mobile devices and better mobile access technologies.
Goldstuck predicts that South Africa will show steady Internet user growth over the next few years, reaching 8.5 million Internet users in 2013 and 9 million users in 2014.
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