South Africa’s Internet Users Projected to Double in 5 Years

Kato Mivule January 20, 2010

Though the projections look promising on the side of PC Connectivity, much focus could be placed on smartphones and Notebooks. Personally I do not think that PC Connectivity is the future. The number of Cell Phone subscribers is 300 Million and beyond currently in Africa. Therefore smartphones and Notebooks have a far brighter future in Africa. Education could be focused on how best to utilize smartphones to solve a number of problems in Africa…

Web: SA’s internet users could double by
2015
SA Business Report January 15, 2010 By Thabiso Mochiko

South Africa’s internet users could double to 10 million by 2015
as the the cost of telecommunications falls and the number of personal computers
and smartphones connected to the Internet grows, Arthur Goldstuck, the managing
director of World Wide Worx, said on Friday.

The firm announced
this week that internet users in the country rose by 15 percent to 5.3 million
at the end of 2009 and could reach 6 million by the end of
2010.

Goldstuck said the growth to 10 million users would come from
a combination of an estimated 8 million computers with a internet connection by
2015 and increase in the number of consumers owning smartphones that have access
the internet.

“It will take a couple more years before mobile
internet users outnumber PC-based internet users,” he
said.

Goldstuck added that for internet usage to increase limits on
internet use needed to disappear completely or at least be made far less
restrictive.

“One of the areas of most dramatic usage growth
worldwide right now is in video material online, but South Africa’s data
restrictions mean we are kept from becoming part of that trend. It will take
several years for online video to take off to the same extent in South Africa,
but lifting data restrictions will open that market immediately,” he
said.

Barriers to entry should also be lowered including the cost
of access to asymmetric digital subscriber line or ADSL, which is dominated by
Telkom.

“A stronger push needs to be made for computer literacy,
starting in schools, but also extending to adult education in disadvantaged
communities,” he concluded. – I-Net Bridge