I've accidentally caused a little Twitter storm over my remarks at Update Conference yesterday.
During my talk, I mentioned the following statistic:
In Africa, there is better access to mobile phones than there is access to clean drinking water.
However, on Twitter, that's got mangled into:
There are more people with access to mobile Internet in South Africa than have access to clean water.
Understandably, there's been a bit of questioning of that statistic!
So, I had researched the stat before trotting it out and I am confident it is accurate - but here's what I've found out specifically in South Africa.
That doesn't account for how far away the safe water was - and a whole host of other factors like inside plumbing etc.
100% penetration could mean only 50% of the population each with two phones (one for personal use, one for work etc), there's a lot of fudge factor in those numbers.
But the growth rate in South Africa is stunning - estimated at 120% penetration in 2011.
What this means is that the vast majority of South Africans have access to both safe water and a mobile phone. It may not be their own tap, they may have to travel a few miles to send an SMS - but the access is there.
For the whole of Africa, access to clean water is estimated to be 46% - whereas mobile phone penetration is estimated to be 50%.
I wasn't able to specifically find any statistics about GPRS / mobile internet use which I could quote with any confidence.
So, I hope that clears that up a bit!
Update!
Some thoughts from Twitter
@edent access to mobile internet requires three separate things: nearby GPRS coverage, a phone and SIM, and the funds to pay for access.
— Andrew Fraser (@Arfness) September 6, 2011
@edent Without any of those three things, we cannot argue that there is access. I think the comparison is flawed for that reason.
— Andrew Fraser (@Arfness) September 6, 2011