Opera: Women in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya use more data than men

How do women in Africa use the internet? This is what a study conducted by Opera and Worldreader aimed to answer.

The study took the form of a poll, and surveyed 1500 women aged 14 to 44 from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

The results were then compared to Worldreader’s database of 50 000 app users in these countries. And overall, they shed light on a few interesting differences in internet usage habits between the continent’s men and women.

For one, women seemingly use more data than men.

In Kenya, “nearly half” of women spend over US$9.62 on mobile megabytes. Just a third of men purchase a similar amount. It’s a similar case for Nigerian women. Around 70% of respondents purchase data bundles in excess of US$2.74 compared to 60% of men.

Women in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya use more data than men, Opera finds

“Women also lead when it comes to buying big data packages with five times more women buying 10GB data bundles in Kenya than men,” the press release adds.

In terms of using their data, women also differ from men in terms of content accessed.

Women tend to read three times as many pages on ebooks as men, while women access more ebooks on Worldreader’s platform on average.

Opera also suggests “women are more engaged than men with content that can improve their lives, including content related to education, economy, property rights, public services, and health”.

And in terms of accessing news via their mobile browser, women also lead men in all three countries in that regard.

Feature image: Erik Hersman via Flickr (CC BY 2.0, resized)