Wealthy citizens dominate SA's Internet access, with those earning over R400 000 per year comprising a quarter of the Internet population, twice that of households earning less than R50 000 per year.
A survey released by Internet media and market research group Nielsen/NetRatings says that although all income groups are well represented in their Internet access, the country's Internet population is not representative of the entire population overall.
The survey also shows a strong correlation between wealth and sport, or the pursuit of leisure activities, probably far stronger than in other markets.
Nielsen/NetRatings says in a report: "High-income households might be the dominant group online but, of course, this is not the case among the country as a whole."
Alex Burmaster, Nielsen/NetRatings Internet analyst, says: "Few other domestic online markets exhibit such a correlation between wealth and sport as the South African market does. While financial and business sites are common internationally among those attracting the wealthiest households, sport doesn't feature to nearly the degree it does in SA."
Burmaster also says that in the UK, for example, not one of the 20 most popular sites with highest-income households has anything to do with sport, while SA has 12 in the top 20.
No surprise
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of South African Internet market research company World Wide Worx, says the findings of the Nielsen/NetRatings survey are not a surprise.
"It has been long known that Internet penetration in this country is in the upper LSM [lifestyle measurement] levels," he says.
LSM is the advertising and market research industry standards for measuring household incomes. The scale used is from one to 10, with the higher the number meaning the higher the income.
"Internet access has been dominated by the LSM eight to 10 levels, with some significant participation in the six and seven categories, however, the rest is rather meaningless," Goldstuck says.
He says while it seems sport dominates wealthy peoples' usage of the Net, these sites are actually related to leisure pursuits.
"Those sites, while seeming to be sport-oriented, are actually leisure, or hobby, sites. People who have the time and the money pursue these activities and so these are not 'professional' sport sites."
Goldstuck hopes the cost of Internet access in SA will decrease and so open it up to wider audiences.
"We have seen some move in the wireless space, especially with companies such as iBurst reducing prices, but my real hope is for ADSL connections to the home to drop to R75 per month."
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