Arthur Goldstuck, CEO of World Wide Worx and renowned Big Kahuna in the SA internet/mobile space, is taking us through his version of Double Trouble: a one-two punch presentation on (1) mobile trends in SA and (2) the SA blogosphere, counted. The stats that Arthur reveals are often quoted in presentations around the country as pretty much gospel; they include some of the most reliable and extensive statistical feedback on the nature of industry growth and change.
MOBILITY 2007:
Arthur is diving straight in and tackling the HUGE numbers that people tend to quote when talking mobile user growth. Mobile users in general have been overcounted in SA. Connections have been counted as customers and this obviously completely misleading. Starter kits (with a phone number) can be purchased for anywhere from 50c to R1.99, with some people swapping between 10 different numbers to take advantage of all the freebies and discounts that come bundled with each account.
The real number of mobile users in SA is closer to 32 Million rather than the often cited 42 Million, which is almost as large as our entire population. Arthur's number makes a lot more sense.
As far as number portability goes, CellC has had the most to gain thanks to the CellC/Virgin Mobile portability campaigns across TV/radio/print.
Samsung has come from behind and eaten into the bigger handset manufacturers' market share, now becoming the real rival to mobile mammoth Nokia.
Awareness of all the various mobile technologies has increased by 26%. Internet downloads have jumped from 54% to 69%, 3G from 50% to 62% and purchasing via mobile has jumped from 32% to 58%. Arthur seems surprised that mobile TV awareness has grown from 55% to 59%, when this is technology that almost noone can use. I still haven't seen the so-called MNET trials on mobile.
FNB have traditionally been the leaders in cellphone banking (because they were the first to offer SMS cellphone banking). The other banks are catching up though. ABSA's jumped from 12% of their customers to 24%, Standard from 8% to 13%, Nedbank from 8% to 19%, FNB from 17% to 23%.
Blogging in South Africa, counted Afrigator, Amatomu, Amagama (
Vincent got a slap on the virtual wrist for not submitting stats), Blueworld, iBlog, Media24 and My Digital Life provided stats that contributed to Arthur's analysis below:
August 2007 Total blogs: 2 5136
Active blogs: 2 953
December 2007 Total blogs: 26 179
Active blogs: 3 789
This indicates a 4% growth in number of blogs, but a 22% growth in active blogs. Arthur contends that one-post wonders are disappearing. He calls them 'ghost blogs' - users who just started a blog because they saw
the Stork blogging ad.
Number of posts to SA blogs in 2007: 510 907
Monthly posts - August 2007: 39 938
Monthly posts - January 2008: 48 120
Total page views in 2007: 55.757m
Page views in August 2007: 5.198m
Page views in January 2008: 10.448m
Page views have doubled in five months. Damn!
Unique users in August 2007: 621,204
Unique users in January 2008: 1.791m
Unique users almost trebled in five months. Double damn. Arthur stops the fireworks though. It's an indication for comparing growth or site-to-site, but these numbers will be somewhat inflated and duplicated here and there. But comparing August 07 to Jan 08 gives an indication of growth and that
the blogosphere is becoming a viable media format in South Africa in its own right. Areas for further Web 2.0 research:
- Blogging in Africa: drilling down into Afrigator
- Other user-generated content: Zoopy and MyVideo
- Social networking in SA: MyGenius, BlueCatalyst
- Other Web 2.0 activity in South Africa
- The developer environment
