December 15, 2011
By Richard McCormack

A recent Google study on global smart phone usage included local usage here at home and revealed some interesting SA trends. It appears that smartphones are as important to South Africans, “as their wallet and keys.” Google recently announced these new research findings about smartphone users in South Africa which can be accessed on the Mobile Planet website.

The findings indicate that South Africans are rapidly ‘going smart’. At present 15 percent of South Africans have smartphones, but almost half of new smartphone users have only been using a smartphone for the past 12 months.

South Africans are rapid mobile technology adopters and already consider their smartphones to be as important as their purses, wallets and keys. A massive 83 percent of South Africans polled said they, “do not want to leave home without their smartphones” and 35 percent said they would, “rather give up TV than their smartphones”.

Google also said that South Africans are using their smartphones to make smarter buying decisions: 62 percent of smartphone users have used their phones to do a product search; 54 percent use their smartphones during the shopping process; and 26 percent of smartphone subscribers have changed their minds as a result of gathering information on their smartphones while shopping in-store.

In a similar vein, after looking up a business or service on their smartphones, 61 percent of people visited the business website, and 55 percent of people phoned the business.

As mentioned the survey also revealed that smartphones are competing with TV: half of South African smartphone users watch a video on their smartphones every month and the same number use their smartphones while watching TV. A poke in the eye for TV programme providers was the fact that 29 percent of South Africans polled said their smartphone was, “more entertaining than TV”.