Research and Markets: The Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 - New Report Based on Extensive Surveys and Backed by First National Bank

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/a32b93/the_mobile_interne) has announced the addition of the "The Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010" report to their offering.

“The Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010”

The growth and usage of the mobile Internet in South Africa, including the emergence of the application Internet. Based on face-to-face interviews with 1000 South Africans.

Mobile Internet booms in SA

The use of mobile Internet services has exploded in South Africa, although less than half of urban cellphone users who have Internet-capable phones use the Internet.

This has emerged from the Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 study, conducted by World Wide Worx, and backed by First National Bank.

The report, released today, shows that usage of specific applications like Mxit and Facebook Mobile far outpace browsing on the phone, even though both are available on almost two thirds of the phones used by South Africas urban cellular users.

While 28% of the urban cellular market is using mobile instant messaging (IM), as many as 65% have the capacity on their phones, meaning that only 4.5-million out of 10.5-million potential mobile IM users actually use it. In many cases, an application has been installed on the phone, and the owner may even have registered to use the service, but is not in fact a user.

And, while 60% of users in this market have phones that can browse the Internet, only 21% report that they use this form of mobile Internet access.

Goldstuck adds: It is quite startling to find how many have these features on their phones but dont use them, either out of ignorance or because of cost concerns.

The findings suggest, on the surface, that more than half of urban cellular users 8.5-million are capable of accessing e-mail on their phones, and as many as 60% 9.5-million are able to browse on their phones. The implications of these numbers are significant: in one fell swoop, they would turn the SA Internet user base from the 5.3-million reported by World Wide Worx at the end of 2009 to 9.6-million. Add Instant Messaging to the mix, and the total becomes 10.56-million exactly double that of the Internet user base at the end of last year.

The truth is, many people with these applications on their phones do no use them and do not even know how to use them, says Goldstuck. It is clear that the cellphone has the potential to take South Africans across the digital divide, but the phones themselves need to become more user-friendly, and a vast amount of consumer education is needed.

Ravesh Ramlakan, CEO of FNB Cellphone Banking Solutions, says that, while the overall cellphone banking service has grown more rapidly than online banking, the adoption of FNB's mobile banking WAP site has been relatively slow.

"Customers either do not know how to access it via their cellphone, or their phone needs to be configured first in order to access. However, with technology lifecycles, the adoption to internet banking via the cellphone will feature more prominently in future, he says. Cellphone Banking from FNB provides two million registered customers with access via menu based banking (dial *120*321#) and WAP banking (FNB.mobi).

The study was conducted face to face among urban cellphone users aged 16 and older, representing 16-million South Africans.

Defining the Mobile Internet

The Mobile Internet is no longer a mystery in South Africa, after the announcement of a formal framework for defining the use of the Internet on cellphones.

For several years, the question of how many South Africans use the Internet from their cellphones has been veiled in confusion, with claimed numbers ranging from half a million to 15-million. During the past year, representatives of two of the key players in the debate, World Wide Worx and the South African Mobile Marketing Association, agreed to a formal framework within which they would report the key statistics for Internet usage and access on cellphones.

The framework consist of three tiers, namely:

Tier 1: The WAP Internet (access to WAP gateways, which includes mobile versions of brand sites, mobile versions of traditional and new media publisher sites, downloads of ringtones, games and other content, which may only involve a single link from the phone; the typical user of the WAP Internet is not always aware of using the Internet).

Tier 2: The Mobile Application Internet (usage of stand-alone applications on the phone that rely on data feeds, such as Mxit, Gmail, and Maps; the typical user is aware of using data, but not of fully accessing the Internet)

Tier 3: Mobile Web Browsing (usage of a web browser to access the World Wide Web from the phone understood by most users to represent full Internet access)

The framework was developed by World Wide Worx managing director Arthur Goldstuck and Mobile Marketing Association founding chairman Rick Joubert. It is intended to accommodate the main perspectives that usually emerge in debates around the makeup of the mobile Internet.

It resolves the dilemma that some appear to hype up the mobile Internet while others appear to underplay it, when in fact everyone is talking about different elements of the mobile Internet, says Goldstuck.

Defining the mobile Internet is important, says Joubert. Neither one of the mobile Internet usage tiers is any more important than the other, but decision-makers and marketers should understand the nature of the end user experience as clearly as possible.

According to the Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 study, released today by World Wide Worx, almost all urban cellular users have WAP-capable phones, and a high proportion have used that WAP capability to access a variety of internet based content on a regular basis, but many without realising they were doing so.

Mobile web browsing is measured directly in the new study, and accounts for 3.36-million users at the end of 2009. The Mobile Application Internet is measured across several applications, including instant messaging, downloadable applications, Internet applications, and e-mail. The Mobile Application Internet user base is estimated at about 9-million.

This does not mean marketers can target 9-million Internet users via their cellphones, warns Goldstuck. They would have to target the individual applications that make up that total, which means that the Mobile Application Internet is not a readily addressable market.

The media opportunity represented by the three tiers of the mobile web is quite fragmented and not easy to exploit, but that barrier in itself has presented a fantastic opportunity for early adopter brands who have embraced the medium, says Joubert.

It has also offered opportunities for aggregators of the medium, such as application stores and advertising networks like AdMob and Buzz City, and for the very large publishers like Mxit, all of whom are able to offer marketers very significant reach.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/a32b93/the_mobile_interne