SA porn searches beat out Malema

Cape Town - Data from search giant Google indicates that South Africans have an increasing appetite for online pornography.

Google data shows a spike in demand for porn during the first week of August, from a relatively stable demand in 2015.

South African trends correlate well with international data that indicates a spike in porn searches in early August.

The search term "porn" scored 100 in SA - indicating the highest possible score relative to other search results. That was significantly more than "sex" at 83 and up from a score of 68 at the end of July.

The top search term in SA related to porn is "free porn" (100) which matched the top international porn search. That was followed by "porn videos" (95) and "porn sex" (80).

For comparison, EFF leader Julius Malema has made local headlines with his corruption case and parliamentary fireworks, but as a search term, "malema" barely registers on Google search trends, scoring just 2.

Upward trend

Regionally, Gauteng leads searches for online adult content, followed by the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. Johannesburg is the top city followed by Krugersdorp and Centurion.

On the global scale, the search for pornography is trending upward despite moves by some governments to ban adult sites on moral grounds.

With the global audience, searches for "economy" also flat-line, but the search term "football" peaks at 32 versus "porn" at 91.

This graph shows the searches for porn among SA internet users:

India recently ordered ISPs (internet service providers) to block 857 porn sites as part of that country's crackdown on "immoral content".

Despite that the global demand for porn is strongest in Indian cities New Delhi, followed by Pune and Mumbai, Google data shows.

Research suggests that global revenue from porn tops $97bn annually, or about a third of South Africa's GDP. China is the highest global consumer at $27.4bn, followed by South Korea ($25.73bn), Japan ($18.88bn) and the US ($13.33bn).

This table shows SA regions where there is the highest demand for online porn:

According to research organisation Juniper, around 136 billion adult videos globally will be consumed in 2015 - about 348 for every porn consumer.

By 2020, that number is expected to reach 193 billion as the expansion of high speed mobile internet in emerging markets drives access to adult content.

- Follow Duncan on Twitter