South Africa’s mobile data monsters

South Africa’s hungriest mobile data users consumed well over 2,000 gigabytes of data per month in 2024.

All of the country’s cellular networks have reported significant increases in mobile data traffic in the past year.

The biggest operator — Vodacom — told MyBroadband that it recorded a 32.4% year-on-year increase for the six-month period ended 30 September 2024, its last reported financial period.

“The growth was supported by smartphone penetration and network quality, with data customers reaching 27 million, up 4.8%,” the mobile network said.

In terms of specific trends, Vodacom said its Internet-connected devices grew 5.8% to 32 million, while 4G and 5G devices increased by 7.9% to 23.9 million.

“This resulted in an increase in data usage with the average usage per smart device increasing by 26.9% to 4.7GB per month.”

Vodacom’s heaviest data consumer during its last reported financial period was a Home Internet TopUp user.

Vodacom offers no uncapped Internet packages directly but several of its Home Internet TopUp packages offer copious amounts of data at affordable prices.

For example, subscribers can get a 100Mbps 4G plan with 2,000GB or two terabytes (TB) monthly data for R549 per month. Once they reach their threshold, they can top up with more data at discounted rates.

The Vodacom Home Internet customer with the highest usage consumed 16,100GB or 16.1TB of mobile data over six months, working out to an average of 2,680GB or 2.68TB per month.

If that usage were sustained over an entire year, the user would consume about 32.2TB annually.

For reference, the biggest mobile data consumer on Vodacom’s network last year used roughly 28.47TB, 11.6% less.

Telkom’s biggest data consumer was not far off that figure, munching through an average of 2.44TB data per month from January 2024.

The customer was on one of Telkom’s Unlimited 4G products, which offer uncapped mobile data at either 10Mbps or 20Mbps speeds.

Both Vodacom and Telkom had several other users that also consumed over 2TB of data per month.

Telkom also listed the online apps which saw the biggest increases in data traffic year-on-year:

1. WhatsApp — Up 648%
2. TikTok — Up 601%
3. YouTube — Up 580%
4. Netflix — Up 571%
5. Facebook — Up 569%
6. Instagram — Up 486%

Cell C said its heaviest data users consumed an average of 1.06TB per month in the past six months. All of them were using its legacy Home Connecta 1TB package.

The mobile network said its total data traffic and average consumption per user rose by 15% and 19% year over year.

“The notable change in traffic is attributed to compelling data offers present in both our package
and bundle options, providing customers with exceptional value at competitive prices,” Cell C said.

WhatsApp, TikTok and Facebook remained the biggest contributors to data traffic on Cell C’s network.

MTN would not provide data consumption for specific users as it regarded this to be competitively sensitive information.

The company did share that its highest traffic users were on its fixed plans such as MyMTN Home Wi-Fi, which are sold across its consumer, enterprise, and wholesale segments.

It also said that video streaming traffic was dominant, particularly on its fixed-home products, where it made up more than 50% of consumption.

South Africa’s other two major mobile networks — Cell C and Rain — did not provide feedback by the time of publication.

Below is the average monthly usage of Vodacom and Telkom’s biggest data consumers in 2024.

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