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Cape Town - Online classifieds in South Africa are a force to be reckoned with and the latest figures show that these platforms are on course to dominate the local market.
Gumtree has overtaken News24 as the most popular South African website as the eBay-owned site racks up users looking to buy and sell.
"Gumtree is now officially the largest Effective Measure tagged IAB member site in South Africa for South African users. It shows South African users are in the market to buy and sell online," said Effective Measures MD, Alan Morrissey.
The site which launched in SA in 2005 has audience close on eight million, versus Fin24 sister publication News24 at around 4.4 million, and msn.com a distant third at 2.3 million.
Gumtree was a late entry to the South African classifieds market where local firm Junkmail held a significant market share but the company was sluggish in moving to the open access online platform while it was selling a print edition.
However, the online market is fickle at best and all sites have to work hard to retain and grow their audience.
"When we ask our users why they are so loyal to Gumtree, they tell us it's because the site, frankly, does what it's meant to do for them. Anyone can log on, for free, and find their personal success... whether it's promoting your home business, selling your unwanted exercise bike or finding your first home," said Johan Nel, MD of Gumtree South Africa.
Gumtree though, is locked in a battle with Junkmail and Naspers-owned OLX to dominate online classifieds and the three have taken different routes to help users find what they are looking for online.
Gumtree and OLX generally search from the user's region, whereas Junkmail seems to prefer settling on the city. But while OLX and Junkmail allow search by price, region and year, Gumtree allows a number of search tools so you can specify exactly what you want.
Here's the list of top websites as per Effective Measure, including the size of the audience (August 2014):
| 1 | Gumtree.co.za | 7.9 million |
| 2 | News24.com | 4.4 million |
| 3 | msn.com | 2.3 million |
| 4 | iol.co.za | 1.8 million |
| 5 | soccerladuma.co.za | 1.5 million |
| 6 | dstv.com | 1.4 million |
| 7 | Careers24.com | 1.4 million |
| 8 | timeslive.co.za | 1.3 million |
| 9 | za.yahoo.com | 1.2 million |
| 10 | pnet.co.za | 1.2 million |
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