Chipo Kadzere for Zi.Report

Internet usage in Zimbabwe has grown by 165% over the last three years according to statistics released in March by Internet World Stats. During the same period the Internet penetration (the percentage of people using the Internet) has gone up from 6.7% to 10.9%.

In Africa, Zimbabwe ranks 10th in terms of numbers of users, behind Nigeria (10.0 m), Egypt ( 8.6 m), Morocco (7.3 m), South Africa (5.1 m), Algeria (3.5 m), Kenya (3.0m), Uganda (2.0 m), Tunisia (1.7 m) and Sudan (1.5 m).

Africa remains the continent with the lowest Internet penetration, at 5.3%. North America, with a penetration of 73.6%, is the highest and the world average is 21.9%.

Between 200 and 2008, the country in Africa that had the highest growth in terms of users was Somalia with a rate of 48,900.0% (from 200 to 89,000 users), followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo at 45,980.0% (from 500 to 230,400 users). During this same period the number of Internet users in Zimbabwe grew by 2,602% (from 50,000 to 1,351,000 users).

These numbers however, are good estimates at best. World wide, measuring the number of Internet users is a difficult exercise for a number of reasons.

It is difficult to get accurate data from Internet service providers (ISPs) as some protect this information for competitive reasons.

It is also difficult to ascertain how many people use one Internet connection. One Internet account with an ISP, for instance, might be shared by a family of six, or a corporate team of hundreds of people.

Many users in Zimbabwe, and across Africa, access the web via Internet Cafés. How does one account for those? We estimate, for example, that the Quick and Easy Internet Cafés in Harare’s have up to 4,000 users per day.

With so many variables, it is impossible to get an exact count.