Facebook hits two million active advertisers

"These numbers include healthy growth across South Africa and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa," says Aidan Baigrie, Sub-Saharan Africa for Facebook. With more than 50 million active mobile users in Sub-Saharan Africa, the continent clearly demonstrates being mobile-first. "We are seeing more and more African SMEs embrace advertising on Facebook because it drives sales. At Facebook, we are delighted to play a role in small businesses' growth stories."

Small businesses are the backbone of the African economy. They drive economic growth and new jobs. The number one reason small businesses succeed or fail is their ability to attract customers. Up until now, it has been expensive and difficult to reach customers with limited time and resources available to them.

New app

With accurate targeting that saves SMEs from wasting money on audiences they do not want to reach, Facebook is the best place to build their brands and sell their products. Tools such as the newly launched Facebook Ads Manager app - which allows businesses to manage ads on the go from mobile devices wherever they are - make it even easier for SMEs to stay on top of their campaigns.

"As more people turn to the web and to their phones to discover and connect with businesses, it's crucial that small businesses have an online presence and Facebook is the best platform for them to do this," says Baigrie.

Almost 70% of its users globally are connected to at least one small business in their home country (SME Page, local or eCommerce, classified as SME by Facebook). In total, there are 25 billion connections between SMEs and people worldwide.

Concludes Baigrie, "As businesses are increasingly investing in us, we want to continue investing more in them. This year, we are scaling our SME-dedicated support to include more in-person educational events around the world as well as access to more online support for any business who wants to grow with Facebook."