CAPE TOWN - In the world, 3 billion people are online. In South Africa, users aged 16 and up have increased up to 65% which is up from 63% in 2016.
This is according to Google’s Connected Consumer Study for 2017, The study also reveals that the average age of South Africans online is lower than the global average, with 60% of them aged below 35 years.
The study also shows that the daily usage of the internet is at 42%. While behind the global average of 82%, South Africa is ahead of other African nations including Nigeria (63%) and Keyna (53%).
South Africans mostly use their smartphone to access the internet which is at 60% compared to using a computer which sits at 24% and a tablet at 12%. In SA, Smartphone usage for the internet in the last three years, went up from 47% of the population to 60% this year.
Data from an industry monitoring group showed that SA smartphone sales climbed by nearly a third in the third quarter of 2017. The study also revealed that online shopping is popular in the country. The growing market has seen 2.5 million South Africans reporting that they regularly buy goods from online stores.
According to the data, Sales increased to 28% year-on-year to 3million units during the quarter.
“Falling prices of smartphones, aggressive operator promotions and growing wi-fi/4G penetration are all helping to speed up the adoption of smartphones in South Africa,” Nikolay Dolgov, general manager, point-of-sales tracking at GfK said.
More facts that the Google survey revealed:
1. 61% of South Africans have shown that if they were given a task, they would prefer to do it digitally.
2. 66% use the internet as a primary resource for information
3. 71% of users pay high close attention when viewing videos online