SA makes a massive shift to mobile

SOUTH Africans spend more than 12.5 billion minutes on their phones, a new report reveals.

South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) head of risk Kerwin Lebone also said that between 2000 and 2014, mobile phone subscriptions for every 100 people had leapt by 702%, while those for fixed-line telephones had dropped by 38%.

At the same time, the proportion of people who accessed the internet increased from 5.4% to 49%.

“In 2000, the ratio of mobile phones to fixed-line subscriptions was 1.7 to 1. By 2014, that had shot up to 22 mobiles to one fixed line.”

“Of 26.2 million people aged 16 or older with access to the internet, almost half do so via their mobile phones, with Samsung and Microsoft dominating the handset market.”

The SAIRR report shows that the dominance of the mobile phone extends to voice traffic.

“There were 12.5 billion minutes of fixed-line voice traffic in 2014-15, compared with 82.9 billion minutes of mobile voice traffic.

“Moreover, some 41% of outgoing fixed-line voice calls went to mobile phones, while just under 3% of outgoing mobile voice traffic went to fixed-line telephones.”

Just under a quarter of South Africans spent R50 or less a month on mobile phones and less than 1% spent more than R1 150 a month.

Lebone also predicted a swing to online retail transactions if data costs declined sufficiently.

He also believes the internet will become an increasingly important political tool in South Africa.

SAIRR CEO Frans Cronje said: “The mobile phone and the internet are perhaps the most prominent examples of how the private sector is able to improve the lives and living standards of South Africans.” — DDR