Facebook Grows 16% In South Africa, 6% In Nigeria, 18% In Kenya

June 30, 2016

By Toby Shapshak* [caption id="attachment_30514" align="alignleft" width="300"] Nunu Ntshingila – Head of Africa Facebook[/caption] Some 14-million South Africans use Facebook FB 0.00% every month, the social network says, a 16.6% increase in the year since it last released figures. Nigeria’s monthly active users (MAU) have grown to 16-million (from 15-million) which is a 6.67% increase, as of the first quarter of 2016. Kenya has 5.3-million (up from 4.3-million or 18.6%). Half of these figures in Kenya are daily active users (DAU), and just less in Nigeria. About 90% of South Africa’s monthly users are on mobile, and 95% of daily users. Some 8-million people use Facebook daily in South Africa, or 62%. Just over half (52%) of Internet users in South Africa are on Facebook and it calculates 66% of its consumers are looking at the social network (which it calls dual-screeners) during a show.

Giving her first public address since being appointed Head of Africa last year, Nunu Ntshingila, 51, says there almost 800-million people that are yet to be connected in Africa. “As Facebook this is certainly something that is important for our mission and important for our platform. Later this year, we will be launching the satellite,” she says of Facebook’s initiative with Eutelsat to provide internet coverage across sub-Saharan Africa. Ntshingila says this satellite will help increase how people connect to the internet “to make sure we continue to connect, not at the [current] rate, but we need to fast forward the rate people are connecting to the internet.” *Forbes