Toby Shapshak: Pattern Recognition

This is in no small part because the continent’s most robust advertising industry is based in SA — a fact acknowledged by Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice-president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, at last week’s launch. The country has a “very strong talent hub” but is also a “hub to service the continent”.

Facebook is looking to emerging markets for growth, as have so many other global giants as growth has slowed in the mature American and European markets.

Already, says Mendelsohn, 52% of Facebook’s revenue comes from outside the US.

Africa is the fastest growing mobile market in the world, according to the industry body GSM Association, second only to Asia in size. There are more mobile phone users in Africa than in North America, for instance.

Of Facebook’s 120m users in Africa, 80% (96m) are using mobile. This is already a 20% jump from the previous figures it released in October last year. Furthermore, as Sandberg says, half of the estimated number of Internet users in Africa use Facebook, much like the rest of the world, once bitten . . .

Additionally, roughly a third of Africa’s 1,1bn people belong to that magical category of people — the middle class. They pay taxes, buy smartphones and have disposable income to surf Facebook and buy the products advertised there.

Though this is a business office, it will no doubt help the Facebook-sponsored initiative, Internet.org to gain more users, giving them free access to services, including Facebook. Already Cell C offers free WhatsApp messaging and Facebook surfing, making it the only mobile operator to do so.

Cheap mobile access is a key driver for Facebook’s growth. Its decision to open an office in Africa is sure to help drive a much-needed decrease in these data costs.