SA's rapid Internet growth

Alex Burmaster, internet analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, says, “In terms of the number of people using the Internet, the most developed markets in the northern hemisphere have seen a plateauing of growth over the last year or so. In contrast, South Africa has seen phenomenal expansion – growing by around 50% in each of the last two years.

“This type of growth is, of course, something we have seen across all markets as the Internet has taken hold and moves away from being a niche activity to a very mainstream form of media and an integral part of life.”

The growing number of unique browsers and page impressions

• May 2007 saw 3.9 million active South African unique browsers – 121% more than in May 2005 (1.8 million)
  
• During the same period page impressions grew by 129% from 91 million in May 2005 to 207 million in May 2007

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Who makes up the SA Internet population?

• The Internet population is split 54% male (2.15 million people), 45% female (1.79 million people)
  
• At 1.42 million people, 25 – 34 year olds are the most dominant age group – accounting for 36% of the online population – closely followed by 35 – 49 year olds (1.37 million: 35%)
  
• English is the most dominant language – being the language spoken primarily at home by around 2.10 million online South Africans (52% of the Internet population). Afrikaans follows at 1.11 million (28% of the Internet population)

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Comments Burmaster, “The SA Internet population is much more concentrated around 25 – 49 year olds than other English-speaking Internet nations. In SA this group makes up around 70% of the Internet population compared to less than 50% in the UK, around 45% in Australia and 40% in the US. The majority of the Internet population speaks English and the vast majority of online content is English. While the South African Internet is experiencing huge growth in this area, the opportunity for hyper-audience growth in the future lies in targeting African language speakers.”