{"id":629403,"date":"2026-02-26T15:03:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T13:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=629403"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:05:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T13:05:31","slug":"afrihost-and-axxess-dominate-webafrica-and-mweb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/629403-afrihost-and-axxess-dominate-webafrica-and-mweb.html","title":{"rendered":"Afrihost and Axxess dominate Webafrica and Mweb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PressPulse\u2019s latest media sentiment report<\/a> showed that Afrihost and Axxess have a big lead over their main competitors, Webafrica and Mweb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afrihost and Webafrica are the two largest independent Internet service providers (ISPs) in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afrihost was founded in 1999 by Gian Visser, Brendan Armstrong, and Peter Meintjes. Greg Payne, Angus MacRobert, and Dean Suchard joined later as directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, Afrihost transitioned from a boutique hosting company to a broadband powerhouse by offering affordable ADSL data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is widely considered one of the most successful disruptor stories in South African business history and laid the foundation for exceptional growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next seventeen years, Afrihost rapidly grew its subscriber base and invested in Axxess, Cool Ideas, and Home Connect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is known for its customer centricity and, along with Axxess, has won MyBroadband\u2019s ISP of the Year award more than any other ISP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Webafrica, like Afrihost, was founded as a hosting company. The people behind the company\u2019s early success were Matthew Tagg and Rupert Bryant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Webafrica followed a very similar trajectory to Afrihost, evolving from a niche hosting company into a large consumer broadband player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, Tim Wyatt-Gunning took over as CEO. Under his leadership, the company aggressively transitioned into the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Webafrica showed rapid growth and became one of South Africa\u2019s largest independent ISPs. In 2023, it further expanded by acquiring Mweb from Dimension Data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was particularly significant because Mweb was once the dominant force that Webafrica and Afrihost fought to disrupt in the late 2000s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Webafrica is led by CEO Sean Nourse and remains one of the largest independent ISPs in the country, headquartered in Cape Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afrihost and Axxess beat Webafrica and Mweb<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

PressPulse\u2019s latest media sentiment report showed that Afrihost and Axxess achieved much better media sentiment scores than Webafrica and Mweb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PressPulse is an online media-sentiment tracking platform that developed a custom artificial intelligence (AI) system for measuring sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It tracks South Africa\u2019s top business publications and measures companies\u2019 success in achieving positive exposure in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sentiment ranking is based on the number of positive, neutral, or negative articles and the reach and influence of the publication where they are published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each company is assigned a sentiment score. A positive score indicates overall positive exposure, while a negative score indicates negative exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The score\u2019s size indicates the impact of the exposure. A big positive score, for example, shows that a company enjoyed highly impactful positive exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Press Pulse\u2019s sentiment analysis for South Africa\u2019s ISP sector showed that Afrihost topped the rankings with a positive score of 54.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Axxess, which is still led by its founders, Franco Barbalich and Andrew Simpson, was second with a positive score of 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afrihost and Axxess ensure they receive consistent, positive exposure, which keeps them top of mind and helps them achieve growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Webafrica and Mweb, in comparison, struggle to get any exposure at all. In the case of Mweb, most of its exposure is negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart below provides an overview of PressPulse\u2019s media sentiment report for the four ISPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PressPulse\u2019s latest media sentiment report showed that Afrihost and Axxess have a big lead over their main competitors, Webafrica and Mweb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":589869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1669,1765,213,101826,2508],"class_list":["post-629403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-afrihost","tag-axxess","tag-mweb","tag-presspulse","tag-webafrica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629403"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629490,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629403\/revisions\/629490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}