The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) of South Africa partnered with member, Automated Publishing Services (APS), to release the findings of tablet penetration survey in the South African digital industry.
The key results indicated by publisher members of the IAB
· The majority of respondents (86.5%) are disseminating their content using tablets, with the preferred tablet brands being Apple and Samsung.
· 51.8% of respondents are publishing free applications.
· Two major factors that influence publishers to use tablets include the market penetration of the device and the software and development costs of publishing.
· 74.0% of respondents indicated that being active on a tablet medium is a strategic decision.
The key results as indicated by agency members of the IAB
· Majority of respondents (50%) are from multimedia agencies and communications agencies (33.3%), with more than half (66.1%) already developing smartphone or tablet publications.
· The most common applications used by respondents include company presentations, catalogues, functions and single issue applications.
· According to the survey results, the majority of respondents develop tablet applications last, whilst 80% of respondents indicated that the cost aspect for tablet publishing is the application creation.
According to Andrew Parrington, head of sales at Automated Publishing Services, “key takeouts include the fact that companies are hiring agencies to produce applications and not producing this internally”.
Agencies have established that development and software costs are the biggest obstacles in getting into the tablet market.
“As the market matures over time, the costs for development will reduce. The industry has already seen the software price decrease, making it affordable to produce applications.
“With connectivity rapidly increasing and improving in South Africa, there is no doubt that we will see the future of tablet penetration in the digital marketing getting bigger and the production of tablet specific application will gain more traction,” Parrington says.
The IAB South Africa currently represents over 200 members, including online publishers, creative, media and digital agencies, brands and educators which account for more than 52.3 million of local unique browsers.
