Botswana�s mobile internet use surges
Isaac Pinielo | Wednesday August 3, 2016 18:00
This is according to Statistics Botswana (SB), which recently released a report that reflects on the country’s household access and individual use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in 2014.
The data-collecting agency says 40.6% of households had access to internet in the year under review, adding that the majority of households with access to internet used mobile internet. This constitutes 94.3% of all households with access to internet.
“In 2014, 85.3% of the population 10 years and over in Botswana used a mobile cellular telephone. Of these individuals, 44.2% were males while 55.8% were females,” reads the report.
SB further states that the most common device used to access the internet was a mobile cellular telephone, noting that most internet users, 78.4%, used it to participate in social networks.
It says those who used the internet to read or download online newspapers, magazines or electronic books amounted to 56.6% of internet users.
Internet banking and getting information from government departments’ websites were performed by 8.6% and 21.1% respectively of internet users.
“The majority of mobile cellular telephone users spend most of their time chatting, sending and receiving short messages as well as playing music and videos,” the report states.
According to SB, Gaborone had the largest proportion of mobile cellular telephone users in 2014, with 17.5% of the total, while Kweneng East and Ngwaketse districts followed with 14.6% and 6.3% respectively.
When analysing mobile cellular telephone users by their highest education level attained, the 2014 ICT survey shows that 20.4% of them had completed primary or lower education, while 30.7% and 16.6% of them had completed lower secondary and upper secondary education. Those with tertiary education constituted 23.9% of mobile cellular telephone users.
With regards to the labour force status, the agency says 50.7% of mobile cellular telephone users were either employees or self-employed while 49.3% was constituted by those who did not work.
“Of all mobile cellular telephone users who worked, 41% of them were employees who are paid in cash, 0.3% were employees paid in kind, 7.1% were self-employed with no employees and 2.4% were self-employed with employees,” it says.
When categorising mobile cellular telephone users by their occupations, the survey showed that 12.2% of users were services and sales workers, 11.6% were of elementary occupations, 5.8% were craft and related trades workers, five percent were professionals, 4.2 percent were plant and machine operators, four percent were technicians and associated professionals, 3.7% were managers.
Fixed wireless was the next most prevalent internet connection used by most households at 9.8%, followed by asymmetric digital subscriber line with 7.3%.
Households headed by those within the age groups 25-34 years and 35-44 years dominated in household access to internet. Most households with access to internet were headed by those with tertiary and secondary school education.
Gaborone had the highest proportion of households with access to the internet at 24.1%, while Kweneng East district and Ngwaketse followed with 11.4% and 7.1% respectively.
Of all households in Botswana, the ICT survey showed that 20.6% of them owned a laptop while 10.9% owned a desktop computer. Gaborone, Kweneng East, South East and Francistown regions had the most households with computers.
Most of the households headed by those aged 25-54 years had computers while those households headed by those with tertiary education dominated in household computer ownership.