Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, has revealed the sectors and brands where South Africans are spending the most time online. Categories where online South Africans are spending most of their time online are as follows. News & Weather sites accounted for 23% of all time spent by South Africans online (1.1 million hours) followed by Media & Publishing sites – 16% (0.8 million hours). The ten most engaging categories account for 92% of all time spent by South Africans online.

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, at Nielsen//NetRatings, comments,

“The online sectors where South Africans spend most of their time highlights the power of the Internet as an information resource. Almost one in every four minutes online is accounted for by a news and weather site.”

It’s also worth noting that the popularity of a sector isn’t necessarily aligned with how much total time it accounts for. Employment, for example, is the ninth most popular category but ranks as the sixth leading sector by total time.

Alex comments further

“The dominance of Media24 in the South African landscape is astonishing when one considers that just over one in every four minutes online is spent within their sites – and when comparing that to the most dominant brands in other countries.

MSN, for example, is the most dominant brand in the UK in terms of time, yet accounts for ‘just’ 12% of total time. Similarly in Australia it’s Nine/MSN which also accounts for 12% and, in the US, it’s AOL which accounts for ‘just’ 9% of total time.”

By category

By Brand

[Source Nielsen//NetRatings]

Popularity: 8% [?]