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Johannesburg - World Wide Worx on Thursday released its report
stating that the use of mobile internet services has exploded in South
Africa, although less than half of urban cellphone users who have
internet-capable phones use the web.
This emerged from the Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 study, conducted face-to-face among urban cellphone users aged 16 and older, representing 16 million South Africans.
The report shows that usage of specific applications like Mxit and Facebook Mobile far outpace browsing on the phone, even though both are available on almost two-thirds of the phones used by South Africa's urban cellular users, the company said.
While 28% of the urban cellular market is using mobile instant messaging (IM), as many as 65% have the capacity on their phones, meaning that only 4.5-million out of 10.5 million potential mobile IM users actually use it.
In many cases an application has been installed on the phone and the owner may even have registered to use the service, yet in fact never does so.
While 60% of users in this market have phones that can browse the internet, only 21% report that they use this form of mobile internet access.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck, MD said: "It is quite startling to find how many have these features on their phones but don't use them, either out of ignorance or because of cost concerns."
The findings suggest, on the surface, that more than half of urban cellular users, 8.5 million, are capable of accessing e-mail on their phones
and as many as 60%, 9.5 million, are able to browse on their phones.
The implications of these numbers are significant: in one fell swoop, they would turn the SA internet user base from the 5.3 million reported by World Wide Worx at the end of 2009 to 9.6 million. Adding Instant Messaging users to the number pushes the total to 10.56 million.
This is exactly double that of the internet user base at the end of last year.
"The truth is, many people with these applications on their phones do not use them and do not even know how to use them," said Goldstuck.
"It is clear that the cellphone has the potential to take South Africans across the digital divide, but the phones themselves need to become more user friendly, and a vast amount of consumer education is needed."
FNB Cellphone Banking Solutions CEO Ravesh Ramlakan said that, while the overall cellphone banking service has grown more rapidly than online banking, the adoption of FNB's mobile banking WAP site has been relatively slow.
"Customers either do not know how to access it via their cellphone, or their phone needs to be configured first in order to access. However, with technology lifecycles, the adoption to internet banking via the cellphone will feature more prominently in future," he said.
- I-Net Bridge
This emerged from the Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 study, conducted face-to-face among urban cellphone users aged 16 and older, representing 16 million South Africans.
The report shows that usage of specific applications like Mxit and Facebook Mobile far outpace browsing on the phone, even though both are available on almost two-thirds of the phones used by South Africa's urban cellular users, the company said.
While 28% of the urban cellular market is using mobile instant messaging (IM), as many as 65% have the capacity on their phones, meaning that only 4.5-million out of 10.5 million potential mobile IM users actually use it.
In many cases an application has been installed on the phone and the owner may even have registered to use the service, yet in fact never does so.
While 60% of users in this market have phones that can browse the internet, only 21% report that they use this form of mobile internet access.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck, MD said: "It is quite startling to find how many have these features on their phones but don't use them, either out of ignorance or because of cost concerns."
The findings suggest, on the surface, that more than half of urban cellular users, 8.5 million, are capable of accessing e-mail on their phones
and as many as 60%, 9.5 million, are able to browse on their phones.
The implications of these numbers are significant: in one fell swoop, they would turn the SA internet user base from the 5.3 million reported by World Wide Worx at the end of 2009 to 9.6 million. Adding Instant Messaging users to the number pushes the total to 10.56 million.
This is exactly double that of the internet user base at the end of last year.
"The truth is, many people with these applications on their phones do not use them and do not even know how to use them," said Goldstuck.
"It is clear that the cellphone has the potential to take South Africans across the digital divide, but the phones themselves need to become more user friendly, and a vast amount of consumer education is needed."
FNB Cellphone Banking Solutions CEO Ravesh Ramlakan said that, while the overall cellphone banking service has grown more rapidly than online banking, the adoption of FNB's mobile banking WAP site has been relatively slow.
"Customers either do not know how to access it via their cellphone, or their phone needs to be configured first in order to access. However, with technology lifecycles, the adoption to internet banking via the cellphone will feature more prominently in future," he said.
- I-Net Bridge
