Saifaddin Galal
Research Expert covering the economy and society on Egypt, South Africa, and Ethiopia
Get in touch with us nowFacebook dominates the African market
Facebook is the leading social media platform in Africa in terms of market share. Since January 2021, Facebook has maintained traffic generation capabilities of over 50 percent. YouTube and Twitter followed with a share of around 9.4 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively, as of May 2022. In absolute terms, there were 271 million Facebook users in Africa in 2022, a number forecast to reach over 377 million by 2025. Furthermore, YouTube had around 180 million African users, while Twitter's user base stood at about 24 million as of the same year.Northern Africans and men are more present on social networks
Northern Africa had the largest number of users on all social media platforms. For example, there were almost 104 million Facebook users in the northernmost region of the continent in 2022, followed by Western Africa with nearly 58 million. The user base of the rising social network TikTok also followed the same pattern. The potential advertising reach of TikTok in Northern Africa attained almost 28 million, higher than 7.5 million in Southern Africa. Additionally, in four out of five regions of the continent, there were more male social media users, hovering around a share of 60 percent. Only Southern Africa had a slightly higher percentage of women on social media.Internet connectivity
The social media penetration in Africa has grown together with the increasing internet use. However, despite the rapid growth, internet connectivity on the continent is lower compared to other world regions. In 2022, internet penetration in Africa was forecast to reach 47 percent, rising from nine percent in 2010. By the end of 2021, internet penetration in Africa was short of the global average by 23.1 percentage points. Notably, Southern and Northern Africa were significantly ahead of the other regions on the continent in the share of people using the internet at 66 percent and 63 percent, respectively. On the other hand, Eastern and Central Africa had the lowest internet penetration.Mobile devices were responsible for over 73 percent of the web traffic on the continent as of 2022. In 2020, individuals connected to mobile internet accounted for 28 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa's population. At the same time, the region had the second largest share of people living in areas covered by a mobile broadband network but not using mobile internet. Further, some 19 percent of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa lived in a place with no mobile network.
