{"id":666999,"date":"2023-03-04T13:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=666999"},"modified":"2023-03-03T16:55:06","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T14:55:06","slug":"south-africans-are-the-biggest-internet-addicts-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/666999\/south-africans-are-the-biggest-internet-addicts-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans are the biggest internet addicts in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Are Social and Maltwater published the latest Global Digital Report<\/a> for 2023, showing how the world\u2019s internet population has changed over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

The report draws data from several sources and research groups, including GlobalWebIndex, GSMA Intelligence, Statista, Locowise, Data.AI, and SimilarWeb, to compile a comprehensive overview on digital trends.<\/p>\n

According to the report, mobile dominates as a channel across the globe, with 5.44 billion unique mobile users in the world today \u2013 up 168 million (3.2%) from January 2022.<\/p>\n

There are 5.16 billion internet users in 2023, an increase of 98 million (1.9%) versus January 2022, and there are 4.76 billion social media users in 2023, with the worldwide total growing by 137 million (3%) since this time last year.<\/p>\n

Looking specifically at Southern Africa and South Africa, internet penetration rates are a mix of relatively low (72% for internet and 2.9% for social media) to comparatively high (187.4% for mobile) when compared globally.<\/p>\n

Other key findings of the report regarding South Africa are given below:<\/p>\n

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South Africans spend a lot of time online<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the report, South Africans spend the longest time online compared to any other country \u2013 connected for an average of 9 hours and 38 minutes daily<\/strong> on any device.<\/p>\n

This is far higher than the global average of 6 hours and 37 minutes \u2013 and over 2 hours more than the USA \u2013 making us the biggest internet addicts in the world.<\/p>\n

Connecting via computers, South Africans are also the biggest users, spending just under four and a half hours a day, on average, glued to our screens.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking at mobile internet time, South Africans are also higher than the global average, spending 5 hours and 13 minutes daily connecting via mobile devices.<\/p>\n

\n

South Africa\u2019s average internet speeds are far below average \u2013 but higher than African peers<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the report, South Africa\u2019s average fixed-line internet speeds are at 40.12 Mbps, which is some way below the global average of 74.54 Mbps.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, the world leader is Chile, with an average speed of a blistering 216 Mbps, while China and Singapore come in close 2nd and 3rd with speeds of 214 Mbps, respectively.<\/p>\n

The only African country to beat South Africa was Egypt, with a speed of 45.79 Mbps, while Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya trailed in last place, with speeds of 27.70, 11.84, and 9.60 Mbps, respectively.<\/p>\n

\n

Our mobile speeds are higher than the global average<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s average mobile speed is recorded at 36.70 Mbps, just above the global average at 33.97 Mbps.<\/p>\n

Overall, mobile speeds have become much faster over the years, with some countries boasting speeds that are faster than most other countries’ fixed-line speeds.<\/p>\n

The U.A.E. recorded the highest average mobile speed of 139.41 Mbps in 2023, while in 2019, Canada recorded the highest average at only 65.1 Mbps.<\/p>\n

\n

We spend more time on social media than the average<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africans also spend more time using social media platforms than the global average, with the report recording the average time spent at 3 hours and 44 minutes each day.<\/p>\n

The average social media user globally spends 2 hours and 31 minutes on social platforms each day \u2013 with extreme users (Philippines) spending over 4 hours.<\/p>\n

South Africans have 7.8 social media accounts on average.<\/p>\n

\n

We love WhatsApp<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a broader look at the most popular Social media platforms in each country, South Africans\u2019 usage patterns showed that WhatsApp was the top app.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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We spend an average of R4,717 shopping online<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the report, Melteater also looked at e-commerce and online shopping across the globe.<\/p>\n

South Africa ranks quite low as an e-commerce nation, with the average revenue per user (ARPU) going towards consumer goods sitting at around $258 (R4,717) annually.<\/p>\n

This is far lower than the global average of $873 (R15,961) annually.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons for this is the low penetration of online shopping habits, with less than half (47.7%) of South Africa\u2019s internet users actually making online purchases.<\/p>\n

According to the report, online spending makes up only 1.72% of GDP per capita and represents 3.82% of total retail revenue in the country.<\/p>\n

The report highlighted that the most money spent online goes towards electronics ($1.81 billion), toys, hobbies, and DIY ($1.34 billion), Furinture ($1.12 billion) and fashion ($1 billion) annually.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Read: This once-obscure sport is booming in South Africa \u2013 here are all the places you can play and how much it costs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Are Social and Meltwater have published the latest Global Digital Report for 2023, showing how the world’s internet population has changed over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":667111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26,11554,13652],"class_list":["post-666999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline","tag-meltwater","tag-we-are-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666999"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":670313,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666999\/revisions\/670313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}