Mobile Internet booming
South African mobile users generated 159.2 million mobile Internet ad impressions during May this year on advertising network AdMob. This makes South Africa the fifth largest country by page impressions on the network which operates in around 160 countries globally.
The most ad page impressions during May were recorded by the US, India, Indonesia and United Kingdom.
AdMob, which recently entered the South African market, specialises in advertising on mobile devices. Since AdMob began to operate in the country South Africa has recorded double-digit growth for each of the past six months.
Niren Hiro, AdMob vice president of business development, says AdMob served over three billion ad impressions on mobile websites around the world in May alone.
"South Africa is a very important market for AdMob because of South African users’ love for the mobile web. AdMob has seen early success helping advertisers reach South African users and is now investing to grow our South African presence."
The growth in mobile web usage from South African users has been dramatic – fuelled by the ease at which users are able to access the Internet from their cellphones, said Hiro. Low PC penetration has created the need for an alternative solution and the low cost of bandwidth through the cellular network operators has made mobile Internet access a fitting answer, he says.
Figures from industry analysts World Wide Worx pin the number of cellphone subscribers in South Africa at more than 30 million.
While there are locally hosted mobile websites in South Africa, most of the traffic from South African users on the AdMob Network was generated on mobile websites hosted in other countries. Hiro says that AdMob is therefore looking to stimulate the number of local publishers so that they can begin to capitalise on the strong traffic figures from South African users. Local advertisers can then in turn use local mobile websites to reach local users.
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