Online publishers are seeing a massive increase in the number of people and unique browsers accessing local content, says industry body the Online Publishers Association (OPA).
According to its latest statistics, as measured by Nielsen Online, which takes the measurements on behalf of the OPA, the number of South Africans who access the Web on a monthly basis increased 53% year-on-year, to 7.5 million, in the last quarter of 2009. Total unique monthly browsers from domestic and international sources jumped 52% on an annual basis, to 14.9 million.
The OPA says this means that 111 000 more South Africans per day visited OPA member sites in Q4 2009, compared to Q4 2008.
“This increase is indicative of the progressively central role that the Internet plays in our daily lives”, Karen Dempers, OPA head of marketing, says. “It also shows that local content is luring local eyeballs, testimony to the quality of domestic online properties.”
An increase in international visitors to OPA member sites was also recorded. Almost 145 000 more international visitors came to OPA sites in Q4 2009, a surge of 56%.
Access rules
Josh Adler, OPA head of measurement, says the rise is due to a confluence of factors, that includes increased bandwidth, more people becoming aware of the Internet as a medium and participation by a number of industry players. Furthermore, more people are getting access to personal computers and are also using their mobile phones to access content.
“Everyone is doing their bit,” Adler says.
The number of sites the OPA is measuring has also increased dramatically since the organisation was founded in 2003. Currently, the OPA measures more than 540 Web sites, from 63 publishing houses, compared to the original 13 publishers with less than 40 sites seven years ago.
Nielsen Online also reports traffic to mobile destinations and unique monthly visitors to OPA WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) sites grew almost tenfold from Q4 2008 to Q4 2009. More than 71 registered WAP sites are now being measured by Nielsen Online.
The OPA says other factors affecting mobile traffic include an increase in the number of Web-enabled handsets in the marketplace, growth in the number of South Africans accessing the mobile Internet, and a move by many OPA members to detect mobile browsers on their Web sites and to redirect visitors accessing via their phones to their related WAP destinations.
Adler says while unique browsers do not translate directly into people on a one-to-one basis, as one person may have multiple pages open at the same time, it is a global metric.
“Online publishing is still in its infancy and we have less than 10 years of data, so there is still a lot to be learnt,” he says.
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