Global E-Commerce: Africa - Internet Penetration

Despite the continent's lackluster performance in overall Internet connectivity, African countries vastly improved their levels of Internet access in the late 1990s. Only 11 African nations were even connected to the Internet at the close of 1996. However, by 2000 all 54 countries maintained a permanent connection. Still, for the most part reliable Internet connectivity was limited to the national capitals and other major cities. Rural areas, where about 75 percent of the continent's population resides, enjoyed little or no connectivity at all. By early 2000 there were some 450 public Internet service providers (ISPs) throughout Africa, excluding South Africa. According to Communications International, seven countries—Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe—boasted 10 or more ISPs, but 20 countries had only one.

Worldwide, an average of one out of every 35 individuals is an Internet user, but in Africa that ratio drops to about one in 250. Personal Internet accounts were a luxury beyond the reach of most Africans in the early 2000s. Communications International re-ported that there were roughly 1 million dial-up Internet accounts throughout Africa, with 650,000 of those in South Africa alone, although precise counts were hard to come by. Another 200,000 accounts were based in the North African Arabic-speaking nations. The end result of this count is a paltry 150,000 personal accounts spread among the remaining 50 countries. Internet connection through much of Africa, in fact, was only the tip of the iceberg, given that in many countries less than one person per 100 enjoyed access to a telephone. A few smaller countries with less geographical ground to cover, such as Cote d'Ivoire and Mauritius, could claim teledensities reaching 25 percent (or one telephone for every four persons). However, even well-developed South Africa maintained a teledensity of only 12 percent.

One strategy to combat the digital divide between the capital and major cities and rural areas and small towns was to provide special area codes for local areas that charge for service at local tariff levels. In this way, national telecommunications providers can significantly cut the cost of delivering service to such isolated areas. A handful of countries, including Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe, have adopted this strategy.

By 2001 the number of Internet hosts in all of Africa was roughly equivalent to that of the small, Eastern European country of Latvia, according to Communications International. In another comparison, there were as many ISPs in Tokyo as existed in all of Africa. The continent's largest commercial ISP, Nairobi, Kenya-based AfricaOnline, boasted 600,000 dial-up accounts in nine countries in 2001. Each of those accounts averaged seven individual users. South Africa, the largest Internet market, was dominated by two major ISPs that commanded 90 percent of the market between them, while more than 40 tiny companies specializing in local service shared the rest of that country's market. The market leader, Mweb, boasted 145,000 subscribers in early 2001, while its rival Yebo Net claimed some 100,000 subscribers.