It helps to know your market, so here are some simple stats, courtesy of internetworldstats.com, as at June 2011:

How many people use the internet in South Africa?

Out of a population of around 49 million, 6.8 million of us happy South Africans use the internet – this is around 14% of the population.

Almost 4 million of us are on FaceBook.

Before you get excited

We at Black Square are sceptics about these sorts of stats – we prefer to not get overexcited about them:

• 6.8 million is a large market, but not that large. This means that you expectations of your potential online market must be realistic, and your online communications need to be well executed.
• That Facebook figure also gives us pause: Remember that those 4 million people are there primarily to talk with their friends, not to buy your product. You Facebook target market is only as big as the number of people who like you. BlackBerry has 55,000 people who like them, and any marketer will tell you that that is a fairly small target market (even if it is nice and targeted).

Some comparisons

The USA has 240 million internet users – around 77% of the population. These figures are why niche markets on the web in the US are a lot more viable than in SA: If you hit 1% of the US market, you’re hitting 2.4 million users.

Australia has 17 million users – about 80% of their population.

The UK has 51 million users – also about 80% of their population.

Countries you thought were behind the times

The following countries have more internet users that SA, with greater penetration into the population:

Iran – 33 million users; 43% of the population

Poland – 22 million users; 58% of the population

Egypt – 20 million users; 24% of the population

What’s the upside?

South Africa’s internet users are generally experienced users – they’ve been on the web for a long time, so their expectations and readiness to, for example, shop online are good. We’re also experiencing sharp rises in internet usage – we had very slow uptake until recently and though we’re still slow compared to many countries, that is improving. So there’s a large potential market slowly but surely coming online.

And, even though our internet market is small, enough businesses realise enough interest in their products & services through their websites that we think it is definitely worth building them.

Visit www.internetworldstats.com to find out more.