Who's online in SA?

This is according to a study released by Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, which shows how the South African internet fared across 2008 in terms of consumer behaviour, how the audience changed and which brands grew faster.

In terms of usage, the number of local Unique Browsers and pages viewed both increased by 25% between December 2007 and December 2008. The total time spent has seen a 45% growth from 2.6-million hours to 3.8-million hours.

Andrew Felbert, Nielsen Online, says: "It's a simple fact that not only are there more people online in South Africa, but they're spending more time online and viewing more content. Companies and advertisers wishing to get their products and services in front of consumers can no longer ignore the power of the Internet as a major route to making this happen."

An interesting finding is that the online audience has also changed with the South African internet population becoming more dominated by males - accounting for 58% of South Africans online in December 2008 compared to 55% in December 2007 (+3.2%).

The audience is also ageing slightly - the older the demographic, the greater the increase in share; the 50+ group increasing their share the most (+0.6%). English is not only the dominant language (56%) now, but it has increased its share by the greatest amount (+1.9%).

Felbert says that while the ageing element is natural as a media becomes more mainstream, it is important that the online industry looks at becoming more encompassing and doesn't ignore women and non English-speakers, crucial areas for major growth of the medium.

Making their presence felt as the fastest growing online brands are Avusa's Sunday World (187%) and Dispatch (181%). Avusa publishes four of the five fastest growing sites; Moneyweb holdings and Media24 both had two properties in the top ten fastest growers.

Fastest Growing Brands* across 2008 (by Unique Browsers)

Rank	Brand	YoY% Change	Dec 07	Dec 08	Publisher
1	Sunday World	187%	14,284	40,940	Avusa
2	Dispatch	181%	17,598	49,414	Avusa
3	RealEstateWeb	91%	11,029	21,019	Moneyweb Holdings
4	Sowetan	79%	70,537	126,432	Avusa
5	The Herald	77%	20,499	36,227	Avusa
6	Yellow Pages	71%	203,467	348,102	Yellow Pages South Africa
7	Food24	68%	62,362	104,915	Media24
8	MoneyWeb	50%	60,107	90,282	Moneyweb Holdings
9	Landbou	48%	11,448	16,979	Media24
10	SuperSport	45%	155,771	226,595	SuperSport Zone

"The fact that newspapers feature so prominently should be encouraging to publishers in general, based on what's happened in more developed Internet markets around the world. In countries like the UK and the US, for example, print sales have been hit by the internet but the increasing online readerships are playing an important part in sustaining the size of publisher audiences and, consequently, advertising revenue," Felbert says.