Rudolf Gaiseb 

Close to 60% of Namibians in rural areas do not own a mobile phone, while only 15.1% own smartphones. This is revealed in the Namibia 2023 Population and Housing Census report released last year. 

In total, only 28.5% of Namibians – three years old and above – own smartphones countrywide. 

Namibia’s population peaked at three million in September 2023. 

Although Namibia’s tech-savviness is not quantifiable, the report reveals deplorable numbers on the country’s digital picture. 

The report released by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) in 2024, revealed that most smartphone owners (41.7%) are in urban areas. 

This is despite the NSA reporting an almost equal split in population between urban (1 512 685) and rural (1 509 716) areas. 

“Most of the population (57.8%) in rural areas did not own a mobile phone, while 25.4% owned basic phones,” it states. 

Moreover, 34.9% of households have access to mobile internet connectivity. “A similar trend is observed in urban and rural areas, where 50.3% and 16.2% of the households had access to mobile internet connectivity,” it reads. 

The same report dissects that 93% of the population had access to telecommunications networks, and how the population received information. 

“Most of the population used short message service (SMS) (48.9%) and radio (44.8%) to access information. In urban areas, the most-used ICT platform was SMS (60.3%), followed by television (55.3%), while in rural areas, radio (40.8%), followed by SMS (37.2%),” the report stipulated. At the regional level, SMS was the dominant medium used in Khomas (67.9%), Erongo (64.7%), and //Kharas (60.2%). 

Further, computers and laptops were mostly owned by urban households (30.5%) compared to 6.4% of households in rural areas. 

The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology’s spoke spe rson Ngaevarue Katjangua, added to the discussion by providing insight on the spiking in the country’s mobile broadband usage. 

“The mobile broadband usage via mobile phones increased to 64% by the end of September 2024 whilst subscriptions to Fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) services increased by 7% from June 2024 indicating an increased demand for high-speed quality internet access. 

The National Broadband Policy defines broadband as 2 Megabits per second (Mbps). 

She added it is being reviewed to increase the minimum download speed to 25 Mbps as a broadband entry-level, as adopted by the SADC ministers responsible for ICT. –rrgaiseb@gmail.com