South Africa’s online publishing industry is attracting millions of highly educated, high-earning users, mostly from Johannesburg and under 34 years old, the Online Publishers’ Association (OPA) announced on Monday. More than 3,5-million users supported the industry in August, clocking up 106-million page impressions.
The OPA is a grouping of South Africa’s most prominent online publishers, counting such stalwarts as the Mail & Guardian Online, Independent Online, Media24, M-Web, Johnnic Communications and Ananzi among its ranks.
The user numbers for August were compiled using the Nielsen/NetRatings Site Census system, which has been implemented throughout the industry to provide innovative statistics and demographics. It has also brought consistency to the industry’s statistical reporting.
Independent Online topped the list in August, registering about 1,2-million users, followed by Media24 (including the News24.com site) with just more than one million users and M-Web with about 468Â 000 users. The M&G Online drew a respectable 238Â 000 readers.
According to the latest numbers, most internet users (about 24%) hold post-graduate degrees and about 20% hold bachelor’s degrees. Sixty-four percent of the users have a diploma, associate, bachelor’s or post-graduate degree.
Almost 20% of users are in the top-earning bracket (with a total annual household income of R400Â 000 a year or more). About 57% of users own the houses they live in and 94% own cellphones.
With many people having internet available at their offices, more web users access their websites from work (57%) than from home (33%).
Men seem to be more internet-savvy than women, with 59% of web users male and 41% female. And the digital divide has not been crossed by many older people: the predominant age bracket is between 18 and 34.
Johannesburg was revealed as the biggest internet city in August, originating 24% of the internet audience, followed by Cape Town (15%), Pretoria (10%) and Durban with a low 6%. Twenty-one percent of respondents lived outside South Africa.
According to OPA chairperson Russel Hanly, the industry’s readership numbers are set to rise as new members such as SABCnews.com, Creamer Media and Gauteng entertainment site JHBlive.com join the new system.
“The comparable audience and site-activity statistics released for the month of August marks the advent of a new era for the online publishing industry in South Africa. Thanks to Nielsen’s Site Census tool, marketers and their media strategists will for the very first time be able to plan their investments in the online medium in a similar manner to other electronic media,” says Hanly.
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Online Publishers’ Association