South Africa’s secret Wi-Fi giants

Tens of thousands of commuters access the Internet every day through just one major in-taxi Wi-Fi service provider in South Africa.

There are an estimated 250,000 taxis on South African roads, transporting millions of passengers who don’t have their own cars or prefer to use public transport for other reasons.

Many taxi commuters can also not afford to consume copious amounts of mobile data but have to spend long periods commuting in a taxi every day.

That created a prime opportunity for in-taxi Wi-Fi services similar to public Wi-Fi hotspots in high-activity areas like shopping malls.

These services provide free or cheap Internet access in exchange for users watching or otherwise engaging with advertisements, from which the provider derives its revenue.

WiTaxi was the first company to launch in-taxi Wi-Fi in South Africa in June 2014, made possible through a partnership with Telkom.

The company is co-owned by the taxi industry, with operators as shareholders through industry structures.

To provide connectivity in its vehicles, WiTaxi uses devices manufactured by Netstar, a division of South Africa’s oldest electronics company Altron.

In recent feedback to MyBroadband, WiTaxi CEO Brian Mdluli revealed that the service was running in around 70,000 taxis — or 28% of the total taxi footprint in the country.

For comparison, one of South Africa’s biggest fixed public Wi-Fi providers — Project Isizwe — recently reported roughly 1,000 sites. The other major player — Think Wi-Fi — currently has around 400 hotspots.

Mdluli said that 150,000 unique users accessed the service on a daily basis, up from 75 per day in July 2024.

WiTaxi also celebrated breaching over 1 million total users in June 2024.

WiTaxi’s Internet access is completely free for those users willing to watch short video adverts while they are online.

Mdluli said that download speeds typically ranged between 5Mbps and 20Mbps, depending on how many users were accessing the service at a given time.

Expanding apps and services

The company has also launched several subsidiaries in the past decade.

These have rolled out a radio streaming app, payments app, and a standalone mobile app that allows users to watch adverts and earn free taxi rides.

In addition, WiTaxi plans to roll out its own mobile virtual network operator — WiTaxi Telecoms — in December 2024.

Mdluli also said that the company was planning to relaunch the business with additional services under a “Taxi of the Future” project.

For the project, WiTaxi has partnered with Netstar, Toyota South Africa, and Vodacom Business to install more advanced Wi-Fi and telematics devices in taxis to improve safety.

In addition to connecting commuters, these devices support telematics capabilities and mapping of road hazards like accidents, potholes, and traffic.

By early 2023, around 3,200 taxis were fitted with the new devices, and a further 48,000 were on the way.

WiTaxi is one of several providers of in-taxi Wi-Fi in South Africa, with Sebenza Wi-Fi being another major player.

Launched in 2019, Sebenza became the South African National Taxi Association’s preferred partner in late 2023.

While it did not provide feedback to MyBroadband with specific numbers on its user base and installations, it recently told The Citizen it had provided 7,500 taxis and buses with connectivity.

It aims to increase this to 50,000 vehicles by 2026 and to grow its monthly active user base to 35 million.

To achieve this, Sebenza is currently expanding its services to buses serving the metro, student, mining, and staff bus environments.

Its footprint includes all but one of South Africa’s provinces — the Northern Cape.

According to its website, Sebenza has served over 135 million ads and amassed 129 million page views on its platform by January 2024.