Preliminary results from a survey of the small, micro and medium enterprise (SMME) sector in Cape Town, Durban and Gauteng show that Durban is South Africa’s ”surfer’s paradise”, as companies there started using the Internet earlier, have greater dependency on the Internet and are better trained in Internet usage than their peers in the other two metropolitan areas.
The study — the South African Internet Economic Study (SAIES) — began surveying in June 2002 and more than 6 000 companies have been contacted. Of these, some 2 000 agreed to participate in the survey and the preliminary results are based on 390 returned questionnaires.
The study, funded by internet service provider UUNET intends surveying other metropolitan areas such as Port Elizabeth, East London and Bloemfontein, as well as rural areas, to establish to what extent SMMEs use the Internet and how the Internet has enabled small businesses to compete effectively in the global environment.
The survey showed that 39,8% of Durban companies surveyed had first accessed the Internet in 1995 or earlier. This compared with 37,9% in Gauteng and 35,3% in Cape Town and an overall 37,3%. By the end of 1999, a massive 90,3% of Durban companies surveyed had already accessed the Internet compared with 88,4% for Cape Town and 86,4% for Gauteng.
Durbanites are also more avid users of the Internet as only 44,3% of Durban respondents spent less than 30 minutes connected to the Internet when they first started using the Internet, while in Gauteng 53,9% of respondents and in Cape Town 54,4% of respondents spent less than 30 minutes connected to the Internet.
Almost three quarters of Durban SMMEs have their own websites at 71,2% compared with 64,4% in Gauteng and only 54,4% in Cape Town.
Durban SMME dependency on the Internet for revenue generation is also far higher than in the other two centres. Only 46,6% of Durban SMMEs rely on the Internet for less than 10% of their revenue compared with a massive 66% in Cape Town and 53,9% in Gauteng. At the other end of the scale, a large 34,7% of Durban SMMEs rely on the Internet for more than 30% of their revenue compared with 15,8% in Cape Town and 15,7% in Gauteng.
Although training in Internet usage is generally poor, with only one out of every ten people having had any training, Durban at 15.2% easily beats Gauteng at 9.1% and Cape Town at 8.4%. – I-Net Bridge