Where SA spends most time online

17 Sep 2007

Nielsen//NetRatings recently revealed the sectors and publishers where South Africans are spending the most time online – news and weather, media and publishing and entertainment sites.

Alex Burmaster, European internet analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, comments, “The online sectors where South Africans spend most of their time highlights the power of the Internet as an information resource. Almost one in every four minutes online is accounted for by a news and weather site.”

Based on South African data only, categories where online South Africans spend most of their time are:

News and weather sites accounted for 23% of all time spent by South Africans online (1.1 million hours) followed by media and publishing sites – 16% (0.8 million hours)
The 10 most engaging categories account for 92% of all time spent by South Africans online

Categories accounting for the most time spent by SA Internet population – August 2007

Rank	Category	% of total time	Total time (hours)	Rank by unique browsers
1	News & Weather	23%	1 143 605	1
2	Media & Publishing	16%	802 044	2
3	Entertainment	12%	631 017	3
4	Travel	11%	557 026	4
5	Email, Messaging & Chat	11%	545 838	6
6	Employment	6%	315 219	9
7	Directories & Search	5%	263 826	5
8	Sport	4%	217 145	7
9	Financial Services	2%	125 434	8
10	Real Estate	2%	87 418	12

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According to Nielsen//NetRatings, it's also worth noting that the popularity of a sector isn't necessarily aligned with how much total time it accounts for. Employment, for example, is the ninth most popular category but ranks as the sixth leading sector by total time.

Publishers where online South Africans spend most of their time are:

Media24 accounted for 27% of all time spent by South Africans online (0.9 million hours) followed by MWeb – 11% (0.4 million hours)
The 10 most engaging publishers account for 81% of all time spent by South Africans online

Publishers accounting for the most time spent by SA Internet population – August 2007

Rank	Publisher	% of total time	Total time (hours)	Rank by unique browsers
1	Media24	27%	949 076	1
2	MWeb	11%	376 047	4
3	Interface	11%	369 028	3
4	Independent Online	10%	353 321	2
5	CareerJunction	5%	193 038	9
6	MSN	5%	164 786	6
7	Ananzi	4%	124 154	5
8	Johncom	3%	109 142	8
9	SuperSport Zone	3%	106 029	7
10	Auto Trader	3%	98 780	11

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Says Burmaster, “The dominance of Media24 in the South African landscape is astonishing when one considers that just over one in every four minutes online is spent on [its] sites – and when comparing that to the most dominant brands in other countries.

“MSN, for example, is the most dominant brand in the UK in terms of time, yet accounts for ‘just' 12% of total time. Similarly in Australia it's Nine/MSN which also accounts for 12% and, in the US, it's AOL which accounts for ‘just' 9% of total time.”