Nearly three-quarters of South Africans go online using a mobile device, with KwaZulu-Natal leading the provinces at 78.5%.

At the other end of the spectrum, just 67.2% of people in the Eastern Cape access the internet via mobile, the lowest rate in the country, reflecting possible challenges in infrastructure or service availability, according to Icasa’s March 2025 State of the ICT Sector in South Africa report.

Access to fixed home internet remains far more limited. Nationally, only 14.5% of South Africans have a home internet connection. The numbers are skewed by relatively high access in the Western Cape (40.1%) and Gauteng (21.5%), while most other provinces are below 10%. In Mpumalanga, just 3.1% of people have fixed home internet.

Beyond the home, South Africans also access the internet through a range of public and workplace options: 14% connect at work, 8% use public Wi-Fi, 6.9% visit internet cafés, 4.6% connect at educational institutions and 3.5% use library networks.