By Juliet Gillies
This article builds on the previous one that looked at internet connectivity in Africa. Now we take a broad look at SM (social media) in Africa, as at December 2020, while we’re waiting for the next
annual data to be published (as at end 2021).
Note: all data used was taken from the annual WeAreSocial / Hootsuite report, which pulls in data from various sources, including the UN and country-specific government authorities.
The map shows that SM users as a percentage of population was lowest in the world in three of the five African regions and much lower in the other two regions in Africa compared to the rest of the world. The top five regions were: Northern Europe – 79%; Western Europe (79%); Northern America (72%); Southern Europe (72%); Southern America (72%).
The figures for the Africa regions were: Northern Africa – 45%, with Morocco and Egypt driving it; Southern Africa – 41%; Western Africa – 16%; Eastern Africa 10%; Central Africa – 8%. All five regions were lowest in the world, apart from Southern Asia (31% and Central Asia (28%). The global average was 53.6%, so all five regions in Africa have a way to go yet, but with Northern Africa closing in on the world average.
However, while it may take a few years yet, SM is going to explode in Western Africa, Eastern Africa and Central Africa, as connectivity increases, the youngest generation enters the 13+ age group and as GDP per capita continues to grow, while the price of data and devices continues to fall, in general. The graph shows the differences clearly, but I have included only the top 5 regions and the 5 African regions for comparison purposes.)
As with internet users, there is a great deal of variation in terms of SM users per country on the
continent. For example, the top five countries on the continent are as follows: Morocco – 59.3%;
Egypt – 47.4%; South Africa – 41.9%; Ghana – 26.1%; Kenya – 20.2%. Compare this to the top five
countries in the world: UAE – 99%; South Korea – 89.3%; Taiwan – 88.1%; Netherlands – 88%;
Malaysia – 86%. (The graph shows the differences clearly.)
YoY (year-on-year) growth in SM users worldwide was: +20.9% in 2016; +15.6% in 2017; +8.3% in
2018; +7.2% in 2019; 13.2% in 2020. Numbers of users grew from 2.79 billion in 2016 to 4.2 billion
in 2020. However, if we look at the YoY relative growth figures (%) for Africa for December 2020,
some are mind-boggling. In at number 2 is South Sudan (60.7%), with only Turkmenistan above it
(108.3%). Tajikistan (51.5%) and Uzbekistan (43.8%) are number 3 and 4, respectively.
The other 6 countries in the top 10 are all in Africa, i.e. 7 of the 10 in total – and this is telling us something. The countries are: Benin (45.5%); Chad (42.4%); Rwanda (39.3%); Togo (36.9%); Ghana (36.7%); Angola (36.4%). However, these percentages translate into very small numbers of absolute growth, i.e. between 2.2m (Ghana) and 78000 (Turkmenistan) additional users in these 10 countries.
If we look at the much more important absolute growth figures (number of users), it’s all about China, China, China (110m new SM users), followed by India (78m new SM users) at number 1 and
number 2, respectively. The next 8 countries are Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, USA,
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Spain – ranging from 16m to 8.1m additional SM users.
So we need to see relative growth in African countries above 50% for many years yet – and preferably closer to 100%. Worth noting is the steady increase in time spent on SM per day worldwide since 2016, when it was 1h51min. And more importantly, while the percentage of SM users (internet users aged 16-64) in Africa is low in general, those users are spending a lot more time on SM per day than elsewhere in the world.
Kenya is number 4 in the world (3h42min), Nigeria is number 5 (3h41min) and South Africa is number 6 (3h32min). Ghana (3h08min) and Egypt (3h06min) are number 10 and number 11, respectively. Compare this to the worldwide average (2h25min) and the bottom 5 countries:
Germany (1h24min); Netherlands (1h24min); Austria (1h22min); South Korea (1h08min); Japan
(0h51min). Again, a comparison graph has been drawn to show the big differences clearly.
Questions need to be asked about this, importantly: Does spending more time on SM translate into more money spent or more engagement (e.g. likes, comments, posts, etc.)? In other words, what is the ‘value’ of the time spent on SM in terms of a whole range of variables?
