Smartphone explosion doubles internet uptake
Staff Writer | Tuesday May 5, 2015 18:00
According to the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Statistics Report released this week, individual internet subscriptions jumped 86.7 percent in 2013, largely due to a similarly huge 87.6 percent jump in mobile internet subscriptions.
The mobile internet growth far outweighed the rise in fixed internet subscriptions, which grew by 47 percent in the period.
“Internet subscriptions rose by 86.7 percent during the period under review, from 788,643 subscriptions in 2012 to 1,472,026 in 2013. This increase resulted from the growth of 87.6 percent in the number of mobile internet subscriptions (from 769,805 subscriptions in 2012 to 1,444,207 in 2013). In the period, fixed internet subscriptions rose 47 percent from 18,838 in 2012 to 27,819 in 2013,” reads the statement.
In the past few years, the use of smartphones, which require internet connection for the user to fully utilise its functions such as social media and email access, have exploded in Botswana and the rest of Africa.
The report also indicates that in all quarters of 2013, internet subscriptions were growing at a constant rate.
“Mobile cellular subscriptions registered a growth of 6.3 percent which resulted from the rise in pre-paid subscriptions constituting 97.6 percent of total mobile cellular subscriptions in 2013 whereas post paid accounted for 2.4 percent with 77 639 subscriptions,” states the report.
According to a research report from technology company Ericson, voice call traffic in sub-Saharan Africa will double and there will be an explosion in mobile data, with usage growing 20 times between 2014 and 2019, twice the anticipated global expansion. By the end of 2014, it is forecast that there would be more than 635 million mobile subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa. This is predicted to rise to about 930 million by late 2019, when it is estimated that three in four mobile subscriptions will be internet inclusive.
The growth is attributed to the rise of social media, content-rich apps and video content accessed from a new range of smartphones costing less than $50 (P500).
According to the Statistics Botswana report, subscriptions of fixed telephone lines also increased by 8.5 percent which is an increase of 1.2 percent points from the growth that was recorded the previous year, while the number of fixed telephone lines has been almost constant since 2002.However, nationally, internet and telephone access is still not the best as tariffs are still comparatively high despite price reductions in the retail space for fixed internet products that were made last year in April. This has been attributed to challenges the country faces around infrastructure; particularly in the production of electricity, limited network access, low and relatively costly bandwidth, international internet bandwidth mobile network coverage and secure internet services.
Despite Global International Technology Report (GITR) ranking Botswana amongst the top 20 in the world for recording an admirable achievement on the individual mobile broadband and phone subscriptions, the report indicated that Information Communications Technology affordability was still a major challenge. Out of the 148 countries that had participated in the survey, Botswana slipped one spot down to position 104 although it maintained a quality score rating of 3.4, which was the same as last year.
Government’s efforts to fully invest in ICT have also been fruitful as the report shows that government usage of ICT was ranked well than usage of individuals and businesses.
Government’s action to address the digital divides has been regarded as necessary, more so that efforts must be made to encourage individuals to participate in the digital economy.
Since 2010, Botswana has been conducting a feasibility study for the country to become a regional ICT hub and embarked on several measures to stimulate and adopt ICT as a critical economic driver.