Oct 25, 2012
What is the economic impact of social media in Africa?
Deloitte and Frontier Advisory hosted an Africa Frontiers Forum event at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on the 28th August 2012 to evaluate the economic impact of social media in Africa, how social media is evolving in Africa; what difference is it making to businesses and consumers and how different is the social media experience in Africa compared to both other emerging and developed markets.
Mobile Consumerism takes centre stage
Africa’s growth story and in particular the rising age of consumerism, coupled to the continent’s emerging middle class, has resulted in a surge in the use of mobile phones. As an aggregate market of 54 countries, Africa is currently the second largest mobile phone market after Asia, with more than 700 million mobile connections. This number is projected to rise to almost 1 billion mobile connections by 2016 at a compounded annual growth rate of more than 30%.
Mobile Data Usage – Africa is a Global Leader
More people on the continent have been introduced to the internet via mobile phones and through the rollout of mobile internet infrastructure as opposed to conventional fixed line connectivity. This comes as a result of numerous inhibiting factors, such as a lack of investment in fixed ICT infrastructure and excessive broadband costs that are not compatible with the base of the pyramid structure of the market. Currently, Africa’s mobile data usage amounts to 14.85% of the total internet traffic – second only to Asia.
Mobile Consumption driving Social Media
The high and growing amount of traffic generated from mobile phones in Africa highlights an important trend going forward: namely, that throughout Africa there is a vast interest and uptake in social media platforms. For example, Facebook has become the most visited website on the continent, with African users of the world’s largest social networking site standing at an estimated 44.9 million people. The growing amount of African subscribers has prompted Facebook to more specifically cater to the expanding African market by starting to roll-out local language versions of the website, beginning with Swahili. The majority of Facebook logins across the continent are from mobile devices. It is estimated that over 80% of Facebook logins in Nigeria and South Africa are from some form of mobile device.
Download the thought leadership piece here
Should you have any questions or require a more detailed discussion, feel free to contact Mark Casey (Leader – Technology, Media & Telecommunications at Deloitte South Africa) at mcasey@deloitte.co.za
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