WORLDWIDE MARKET RESEARCH REPORT - CISE

EC/IST FP6 Project No 026920
Work Package: 6
Type of document: Report
Date: 20.12.2007
File name: OP_WP6_D37_V1.0.doc Version: 1.0
Title: Worldwide Market Research Report 200 / 356
dependent upon fixed line access. Due to high fixed line costs, few African homes have
access to internet, but many people use e-mail at cyber cafés. The highest penetration rates
were recorded in South Africa at 5.7%, Tanzania with 2.4%, Namibia with 1.6% and minimal
penetration rates for Uganda (0.4%) and Ethiopia (only 0.1%, where local calls are the
cheapest).
Computer penetration is very low, as is per capita income, and the limited infrastructure
would place a cap on internet uptake in any case. Again, within these very low internet
penetration rates, the distribution of e-mail addresses was significantly concentrated in urban
areas. Close to 30% of metro households have one e-mail address, twice the level of other
urban areas. Less than 5% of households in rural areas had an e-mail address.
The number of household members with e-mail addresses compared to the penetration of
household computers raises the question as to how they access the internet. One of the
primary methods of accessing the internet is at work.
Another indicator of actual internet usage is given by the bandwidth per capita, rather than
the number of users, as it shows the underlying graph.
Figure 5-27 Bandwidth (Kbps) per capita