A: ‘40%’. Q: Now what’s the question?
One of the questions I get asked most frequently is: how many people in South Africa use the Internet? It seems a simple question. It’s not.
Who‘s counting?
World Wide Worx, led by Arthur Goldstuck, who has been writing about the Internet for longer than almost anyone else in South Africa, have published an annual report on Internet access and use for more than a decade. The latest edition was released in July. It estimates that there were 21 million South Africans online in 2016, and this is expected to reach “at least 22.5-million in 2017”. In percentages, they report it will reach 40% this year.
Statistics South Africa’s General Household Survey for 2016 (pdf 3.8MB) published this year, reports that in 2016, almost 60% of households used or had access to the Internet.
Going back a bit further, Research ICT Africa (RIA) conducted a survey in 2011/12 which reported 34% of the population had Internet use. The figure the World Wide Worx reported for 2011 is about 16% and for 2012 about 21%. The last national census was also in 2011 and that reported that 34% of households had Internet access. I worked with RIA on that survey and wrote a report based on an analysis of that data. I predicted that if the growth trend continued at the rate it had been (which was dependent on further cuts in the costs of mobile data), then two thirds of South African adults would be using the Internet by 2016.
So how many people are using the Internet?
Well first lets look at what is being counted. The 40% figure reported by WWWorx is based on a calculation that is based on the entire South African population which includes children. Most reports report numbers or %’s based on the adult population — either over 18 or over 15, although obviously there are many children who do use the Internet. The Stats SA household survey is measuring household access, so not everyone in the household that is counted as having Internet access may in fact be using the Internet. The Research ICT Africa figure is of individual use amongst the population 15 years old and over.
Then there is the question of how users are being counted. The census aims to count everyone but all the other surveys are based on limited samples which are then used to estimate a national picture. Research ICT Africa’s method was a randomly selected national sample of around 1,600 people. Random selection is the gold standard of sampling methods but its very expensive especially if rural populations which are widely dispersed are included. WWWorx say in their report that they combine a mixture of methods including consulting with industry actors but the survey they work from is a large scale survey — the TGI Survey of 15,000 people aged 15+, conducted by market research firm Ask Afrika. The report doesn’t explain much about the sampling methodology butit covers adults living in cities and towns. The WorldWideWorx report states that the figure for Internet use in the last 12 months for cities and towns is 50%.
What was the question again?
Another reason that numbers vary between various studies is that they ask different questions. Even slight differences in questions can change the answers. The WWWorx data is based on asking people whether they accessed the Internet in the last twelve months. In the RIA survey we asked ‘do you ever use the Internet?’. We discovered though that around 5% of those who said no did use the Internet since when we asked them whether the used Facebook they said yes. We adjusted the reported figures to take this into account.
So now you’ve confused me, whats the answer?
Well the short answer is that it’s probable that between 40% and 60% of adults in South Africa are using the Internet in some shape or form — sorry thats not a very precise answer! The World Wide Worx report has generally showed lower levels of penetration that the RIA surveys (which are much less frequent). It may be that the TGI survey is undercounting amongst what elsewhere we have called the less connected who are using WhatsApp and sometimes Facebook but may not describe themselves as using the Internet. But as the WorldWideWorx report itself points out there are many ways in which surveys can under or over count people. RIA has just completed its fieldwork on a new survey so should be able to publish their figures in the next few months.
What the studies and experts tend to agree on is that Internet use is increasing, though not nearly as fast as it could, if mobile data costs were lower. They also all tend to confirm that Internet access and use is very unevenly distributed — more people in metros use it than people in towns and more people in towns use it than people in rural areas. People in the richest provinces — Gauteng and Western Cape — use it more than people in poor provinces like the Eastern Cape. And Internet use is much more common amongst rich groups of people than it is amongst poor groups of people — which in South Africa means its much more common amongst white people than amongst black people. Younger people are also much more likely to be online than older people.
Research by the World Internet Project (pdf, 7.2MB) and others shows that these patterns are common across the world: differences in income, in age as well as in education levels tend to be associated with differences in Internet use.
Another common thread that runs through existing research is the centrality of mobile phones for Internet access and use, especially amongst people on average or low incomes who do not have access to PCs or the Internet at work or via educational institutions.
Lastly, the research shows that for many people social media is the Internet. They are not or only very rarely using email, and they using browsers and search engines very infrequently.
I still need to know whether I can reach people using the Internet
Yes you can, but it very much depends on who you want to reach. The poorer, older and more marginalised the people you are trying to reach the less of them will be using the Internet and the harder it will be to reach even those who do.
Where you are trying to reach them also makes a big difference. In Tshwane, and some parts of Cape Town and Johannesburg for example, free WiFi is available which may make your task easier.
We’ll be publishing new research soon on less connected users — those on low incomes which raises some of the challenges in reaching people who rarely use the open Internet but stay within the walled gardens of WhatsApp and Facebook and who are hypersensitive to data costs. It also suggests that a problem with the question we started with is that ‘the Internet’ may no longer be one thing. It suggests that the Internet of the poorer is so different in its access and use from the Internet of the richer that its simply misleading to think of it as the same thing.
Indra de Lanerolle runs the Network Society Lab at the Journalism and Media department at the University of the Witwatersrand. You can follow him on twitter @indradl
For help in planning a civic tech tool project, you can visit Alidade.tech which will take you step-by-step through choosing a tool or project planning to trial a tool.
Research sources
This article draws primarily from two sources: The New Wave (2012), and The Internet Access in South Africa 2017 Report.
The Internet Access in South Africa 2017 Report is the latest iteration of an annual research project (now in its 16th year) undertaken by Arthur Goldstuck of World Wide Worx with the support of Dark Fibre Africa (DFA). The full report was recently launched, and is commerical (paid for) research drawing from many different data sources including traditional market research methods, market intelligence work, and input from key market players in order to collate, compare and verify user numbers. Only the highlights of the findings are publically available on their website. A media copy of the full report was kindly made available to CTIN by World Wide Worx for the completion of this article.
The New Wave is a 2012 research report, based on the findings of the South African Network Society Survey — a project of Wits Journalism, the University of the Witwatersrand, in collaboration with Research ICT Africa. The survey was undertaken through face-to-face interviews with 1589 South Africans, aged 15 and older.
Research ICT Africa’s reports on South Africa and other countries in Africa are available on their website
