Opera South Africa recently served surveyed millions of South Africans through its user base to find out purchasing habits and behaviours with a view to providing brands with insights into how to reach them more often. This is the second survey of its kind, having been undertaken previously in 2020. The survey looked at categories ranging from finance to FMCG, from telecoms to broadcasting.
Here are the key findings:
Somewhat surprisingly, given how cost-conscious consumers are, only 41,5% were aware of data bundle specials. And while the majority of the sample are MTN and Vodacom subscribers, the survey showed that 34% perceived Telkom to offer the best data among the telecoms providers (R79 per gigabyte), while in fact it is Cell C that offers the lowest rate (R65 per gigabyte). This equates to roughly $4, which is down from $7 as reported in Opera’s 2019 State of Mobile Report for Africa, demonstrating that the price of data has decreased.
“Comparing data from 2019 and 2020, it is extremely interesting to see the change in behavioural purchasing habits. There’s a real opportunity for telcos to hone in on the data saving desires of consumers. The fact that converting airtime to data usage has seen an incline - no doubt attributed to working from home on the back of the pandemic – coupled with the preference of using WhatsApp as a means of calling - means that data, and how its packaged for our everyday lives, really matters to us as consumers,” says Utermark.
Once data has been purchased, people use it to browse the web (22%), use WhatsApp (65%), email (48%), access news Apps (43%) and play games (14%).
Interestingly, whatever Opera users choose to do with their data, they are spending just 22 minutes on their browser on average each day doing it. This versus the 3 hours and 30 minutes a day that the majority of South Africans spend connecting to their mobiles.
The retention rate of users going back into mobile web compared to App however seems to grow over time, highlighting the importance of marketers to rethink “mobile web” when reaching their consumers instead of just focusing on the App environment. This as retention rates are stronger in Web vs. App. Opera Mobile Web usage vs. App is:
“Watching TV is still a past-time of choice for the Opera user base, and while payment can be made via App or online, 35% prefer to pay for the service at an in-store kiosk. This suggests an affinity with the tangibility of a physical environment and, most likely because over half of those survey recipients who do not have a bank account, get paid their salaries in cash,” comments Utermark.
When it comes to choosing what to watch, the majority use social media as a means to receive news about popular shows or movies (41,5%). This is followed closely by paid advertising (40,3%). Radio is considered as a source of recommendations by just 4% and billboards – by 2,3%.
“It’s clear from these insights that consumers are using their mobile phones to browse, research and access content – albeit for a relatively short amount of time each day due to keeping the cost of data usage down. For brands to reach this audience, being active online where their users are is key, and our insights suggest that the peak times of day to serve ads is between 7pm and 8pm.
“In an environment where money is tight, and will get tighter due to global and local events, brands are wise to consider Opera’s users’ behaviours and choices in order to maximise spend and exposure and engage the low to middle market in a highly targeted way,” concludes Utermark.