As Smartphone Usage in South Africa Continues to Grow, When Will Mobile Data Become More Affordable?
In terms of smartphone use and overall penetration of the technology, South Africa is a market leader on the African continent. The vast majority of South Africans own and regularly use at least one smartphone in order to make phone calls, send texts, take photos and access the internet. However, the high rates of adoption are countered by high data costs, with data transfer being significantly more expensive than in neighbouring countries such as Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria.
Despite protests and competition between network operators, the high cost of data means that the poorest smartphone users are forced to buy smaller data packages, which obviously limits their usage and access to the web. With the internet increasingly seen as a basic utility rather than a luxury commodity, this is a problem that many feel has to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Accessing the web
For a great number of South African smartphone users, their phone is the only way that they can access the internet. The country is considered to have good mobile internet provision and currently ranks 60th worldwide for mobile broadband, with download speeds of 31.36 mbps. In terms of smartphone penetration, South Africa ranks 34th worldwide. Internet-enabled phones are used for everything from streaming music to watching online videos and communicating through social media.
Increasing penetration
According to the State of the ICT Sector in South Africa report for 2020 by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the country’s smartphone penetration rate stood at an impressive 91.2% in 2019. This is up from 81.7% in 2018, 74.2% in 2017 and 43.5% in 2016.
The total number of LTE standard mobile devices has more than doubled, from 12,644 in 2018 to 27,999 in 2019. Data subscriptions are up 18.8%, from 65 million in 2018 to 78 million in 2019. Total mobile cellular voice subscriptions increased by 5.7%, from 91 million to 96 million in 2019. As the population of South Africa is roughly 57 million, this obviously reflects the fact that many individuals have more than one subscription. A total of 82 million (85%) were on prepaid subscription packages.
Widespread coverage
According to the same report, mobile phone coverage for 3G increased from 99.5% in 2018 to 99.7% in 2019, while 4G/LTE coverage increased from 85.7% to 92.8%. All nine provinces have 100% coverage for 2G in urban areas, and eight have 100% 3G in urban areas. Only Northern Cape had 99% 3G in urban areas. This province also showed the lowest coverage overall, with rural areas having 99% coverage for 2G, 97% coverage for 3G and 72% coverage for 4G.
In February 2019, Statista reported the total number of smartphone users in South Africa as 20.4 million in 2018, and estimated that figure would rise to 22 million by the end of 2019, and 23.3 millon by the end of 2020. These figures equalled 35% of the population in 2018, 38% in 2019 and 40% in 2020.
Market Share
According to GlobalStatsCounter, the market share for Desktop vs Mobile and Tablet in South Africa as of March 2020 is as follows: 69.17% for Mobile, 28.81% for Desktop, and a mere 2.02% for Tablet. The huge discrepancy between mobile and desktop is quite telling. And it seems that South Africans use their phone to carry out a lot of tasks that up to a few years ago could only be done on a laptop or computer.
However, today, South Africans use their phones to do just about everything; they use it to do shopping, make reservations or bookings, read reviews about a product or service, read the news, and even interact with businesses online via instant chats on websites or even Facebook. All of this can be done online or by downloading specific apps like Airbnb for instance.
It comes as no surprise therefore, that a lot of businesses in South Africa, even local ones, have not only moved online but have also made sure that their services are easily accessible and made available to customers on their phones. This has led a number of these industries to thrive on mobile, including food delivery services, where clients can order food wherever they are by using a website or an app, retail services such as clothes and furniture stores, and digital entertainment services like video games, online casinos, as well as streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Multiple phones
GeoPoll conducted a survey of 400 South Africans in February 2020 in an attempt to gauge smartphone use. It found that 60% of correspondents owned more than one smartphone, either keeping one for personal and one for business use, or to access different services, or simply to keep a spare. Most used the Android platform, the most popular brand being Samsung (49%) followed by Huawei (27%). The iPhone is seen as an aspirational item, with 46% saying they would like to own one.
When asked what the most important factors were in choosing a phone, 29% said storage space, 21% said battery life, 14% said it had to have a good camera and 14% emphasised a large enough ROM. 70% spent 100-500 ZAR on phone services every month, with 16% spending less than 100 ZAR and 14% spending over 500 ZAR. 3% spent over 2000 ZAR each month, and men generally spent more than women.
Popular apps
We all love our smartphone apps, and the GeoPoll survey showed that Facebook was the most popular social media app, followed by YouTube, Twitter and then Instagram. For messaging, 58% favoured WhatsApp, followed by 30% choosing FB messenger and then just 5% using Skype and 5% Telegram. YouTube was the top streaming app and 50% used Uber to hail taxis, with 28% preferring Bolt and 8% going for inDriver.
Some 45% of users were online on their phones for over four hours a day, with 40% saying they spent over four hours on messaging apps and 36% using social media for four hours or more. A total of 70% used a mobile device as their main way to access the internet, with only 10% browsing mostly on a desktop computer.
South Africa’s use of smartphones is increasing as coverage and internet speeds improve. Providers need to provide more competitively priced data bundles so that access is fairer and more democratic. Smartphones have become an integral part of our lifestyles, for everything from shopping to banking and, of course, staying in touch. Smartphones are here to stay, and the list of things we use them for is certainly set to grow.