By Prince Osuagwu

The African business community is adopting the use of mobile devices very rapidly. This is the main conclusion drawn from the survey conducted by the Africa Business Panel, involving about 1,776 African business professionals.

The survey demonstrated that about 67 per cent of Africa’s business professionals use desktops, versus 94 per cent using laptops. The tablet, a relatively new mobile innovation, is already adopted by 47 per cent of players in the African business world. 76 per cent use a smartphone, which is more than the use of the classic mobile phone (64%). Nine per cent possess both a private and a company smartphone. However, there are reasons for this massive migration, which the survey also highlighted in its reports.

Security

Laptops are best protected. 87 per cent of laptop owners in the survey had software security installed. For desktops, 76 per cent made use of security, for tablets, 46 per cent, while the least protected are smartphones (44%). People find it difficult to install security software because of high costs, lack of urgency and complexity.

Usage

Smartphones are used most frequently. 65 per cent of participants in the survey use their smartphones several times a day, 54 per cent use their laptops just as frequently, with users of tablets following at 44 percent. 22 per cent never use their personally-owned mobile phones for work related communication as opposed to the smartphone, of which six percent of the owners say they never use it.

Future use

Asked about expected future use, the rise of mobile devices is confirmed by survey participants. 60 per cent expect a surge in the use of smartphones. For the tablet and the laptop, responses in perceived increase were 58 and 44 percent respectively. On the other hand, asked about which devices participants expected a strong decrease in use, 32 percent indicated the desktop, versus only four per cent for both smartphone and tablet.

Blackberry still a big brand in Africa, iPhone comes third after Samsung

Samsung is the leading smartphone brand in Africa. 30 per cent of respondents that have a personal smartphone, have a Samsung. Blackberry is runner-up (22%), iPhone comes in third place (19%), prior to Nokia (11%), HTC (6%), Sony Ericsson (2%), LG (1%) and Motorola (1%). The – smaller – market for company owned smartphones is led by Blackberry (31%), followed by Samsung (25%) and iPhone (23%).

The survey which was conducted between August and September, 2013, had in total, about 1766 Business Professionals from the continent of Africa participating in this research. 73 percent of these participants were said to be either senior managers, executives, directors or business owners. The participants represent a wide range of African countries, with the main contributors coming from Nigeria (19%), South Africa (18%), Kenya (14%), followed by Ghana (5%), Tanzania (3%), Zambia (3%) and Angola (3%).