With the arrival of the SEACOM fibre optics cable, Africa is set to become more connected to the rest of the world than ever before. This high capacity bandwidth cable can link business and communities in Southern and East Africa, Europe, and South Asia and will increase South Africa’s international bandwidth 40-fold. The African continent is currently vastly unconnected, with nearly all African countries ranking 100th or worse in Internet penetration. Let’s look at the figures for Sub-Saharan Africa.
From Internetworldstats.com - Internet Usage Statistics for Africa (March 2009)
| Country | Numbers of users | Internet Penetration |
| Mauritius | 340 000 | 26.7% |
| Zimbabwe | 1.4 million | 11.9% |
| Zambia | 1.3 million | 11.9% |
| South Africa | 4.6 million | 9.4 % |
| Botswana | 100 000 | 5.1% |
| Namibia | 101 000 | 4.8% |
| Angola | 498 000 | 4.0% |
| Swaziland | 42 000 | 3.7% |
| Lesotho | 70 000 | 3.3% |
| Malawi | 139 500 | 1.0% |
| Mozambique | 200 000 | 0.9% |
The graph below shows which countries rank between 100 and 130th for Internet penetration. These include many African countries, with South Africa at the 110th position (click to enlarge).
From WorldWideWorx.com - Presentation by Arthur Goldstuck (August 2009)
- The Experience Curve reveals that the average Internet user needs to be online for 5 years or more before engaging actively with high-level applications like online retail and interactive applications.
- It emerges as a combination of experience, comfort with using the medium, confidence in the reliability of the medium, and trust in the medium.
From Internetworldstats.com - Internet Usage Statistics for Africa (March 2009)
- In the entire African continent, there are 54 million people online. This is a penetration of 5.6%.
- Internet penetration in Africa has grown 1 100%from 2000 to 2008.
From WorldWideWorx.com - Presentation by Arthur Goldstuck (August 2009)
- By 2013, Internet penetration in South Africa will reach 20%
- By 2018, not more than 33% of South Africans will have Internet access
- The mobile phone will be the digital device of choice
- The capacity of African undersea cables will be 10 530 Gb/s by 2013
- Seacom is only one of a series of new cables in the works, which will make the connectivity landscape completely unrecognisable for both South Africa and the rest of the continent by 2013
An update: Facebook Users in Nigeria and Africa
Since we published this Heidi found some more interesting stats, particularly around Facebook users in Africa.
From Web Trends Nigeria. Facebook Users in Nigeria and Africa (August, 2009)
- 17% of Egyptian Internet users are on Facebook
- 7% of Nigerian Internet users are on Facebook
- 13% of Moroccan Internet users are on Facebook
- 41% of South African Internet users are on Facebook
- 13% of Kenyan Internet users are on Facebook
- 25% of Tunisian Internet users are on Facebook
- 23% of Nigerian Internet users are on Facebook
- The number of Nigerian users on Facebook has increased by 25% since June 2009 to stand at 657,360
- Nigeria has the second most users online but it maintains the lowest Facebook penetration.
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Awesome post, thanks for the VALUABLE and very interesting info :)
Posted by Yasin on 2009/08/28