Around 3.6-million South African mobile accounts have not yet been registered as the RICA deadline arrives. ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK sums up the state of play.
Tag archives: world wide worx
[Netprophet 2011] African ecommerce market has a long way to go
A billion Africans and 50 million bank accounts. In South Africa, credit cards are used by only 16.5% of the population (2008). No African country comes close to 1% of total retail spend spent online – the magic figure which constitutes the tipping point for digital retail growth (in SA, ecommerce has a 0.4% share of the retail market, while in countries such as Egypt and Nigeria, the figure stands at 0.01%). No wonder, then, that the ecommerce market in Africa hasn’t bloomed.
Looking at these numbers, many international ecommerce plays have shifted investment in the African market 5-10 years down the line. But where others fear to tread Oliver Rippel, CEO ecommerce Africa & Middle East at MIH, sees opportunity and first-mover advantage.
For youth market mobile access to information and communication is the answer
Mobility no longer simply refers to motion, it has also come to describe the untethered use of technology on devices like smart phones, both of which seems to have come together in a perfect storm to enable the revolutions currently sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. Setting these revolutions in motion, is the youth, who organise and spread their message using social networks primarily accessed through mobile devices. These platforms are not only changing how young consumers engage with politics but also with commerce and one another.
Internet reaching 10% of South Africans
The number of South African Internet users has passed the 5-million mark for the first time, finally breaking through the 10% mark in Internet penetration for the country. This is the key finding of the Internet Access in South Africa 2010 study conducted by World Wide Worx.
4,5-million South Africans now online
The number of South Africans now online have risen to 4.5 million. This is the key finding of the Internet Access in South Africa 2008 study, released today by World Wide Worx.