Ever thought you were borderline OCD when it came to the relationship with your cell phone? Well, according to a recent study by Synovate you’re not alone: A staggering 84% of South Africans “cannot live without their cell phones”. This is based on a sample of metropolitan South Africans from the ages 16 and older in LSMs 4 and upwards.
From Synovate (March 2010)
Cell phones have become a key platform for marketers, who can piggyback off of the device’s popularity and its universal presence in our everyday life.
- 86% of South Africans accept the fact that they are “addicted” to their phones.
- 58% agree that they can’t turn their phone off in fear of missing something.
- 88% of respondents say that they never leave home without it.
- 89% have their cell phone close by all the time, even when they sleep.
From African Mobile Factbook 2008 (February 2008)
Some numbers to put the local cell phone market into context:
- The total African mobile subscriber base is roughly 280.7 million people, nearly a third of global total.
- The total African mobile subscriber base is expected to reach 561 million by 2012.
- The mobile penetration rate in South Africa is 84%.
- South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Kenya constitute the key mobile markets in Africa in terms of potential growth.
- In South Africa, fixed line penetration is just below 10%, whilst mobile penetration levels reach upwards of 80%.
Image Credit: Africa Mobile Factbox
South Africa’s mobile market development is far ahead of any other African state.
Image Credit: Africa Mobile Factbox
With the local penetration levels nearing 100%, the mobile phone provides massive potential for marketers – however if your messages should engage rather than annoy, it is critical to understand how users interact with media on their phones.
From Synovate (March 2010)
Cell phones offer ever-increasing functionality and have gone far beyond simple calling and texting. New-age smart phones offer much more information and media, allowing users to interact with their devices in entirely new ways.
- 82% stated that they own one phone and 16% had two phones
- 20% own smartphones, being more popular among males (24%) and 25-34 year olds (23%)
The following table provides insight into which functions are most popular among users:
Image Credit: BizCommunity
Television tops the list as the most desired service on new cell phones, closely followed by a need for increased memory capacity. Additional items on the whish list include faster internet connections (11%) and new movie (10%) and music functions (9%).
Here are some interesting facts about how users correspond via SMS:
- 61% have used SMS to pass on a difficult message.
- 56% have used SMS to lie.
- 68% have used SMS for the tough job of saying “no”.
Apparently SMS is also a preferred medium when communicating matters of the heart.
- 36% of those interviewed have used SMS to set up a first date.
- 49% had used SMS to flirt with their partners while 37% confessed that they had used SMS to flirt with someone who was not their partner.
- Close to a third of respondents have broken up with someone over SMS.
- Men are more likely to do the dumping over SMS.
Hopefully these numbers shed some light on how South Africans communicate via their cell phones and provided some stimulus on the huge potential of the mobile space for clever and interactive marketing campaigns.
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