Saifaddin Galal
Research Expert North Africa
Egypt ranks second in terms of its online population on the African continent. As of January 2023, the digital people in the country amounted to almost 80.8 million. It is Africa's third most populous country, following Nigeria and Ethiopia. Furthermore, this represented nearly 72 percent of the Egyptian population, increasing from 37 percent in 2017. North Africa had the slowest average internet download speed in the world in 2023, with Egypt placing second in the region, with a mean speed of 9.75 megabits per second. A rate that would take a five Gigabyte movie just over one hour and 10 minutes to download.
Mobile internet is the future
The emergence of mobile phones has made access to the internet easier on a daily basis. Egypt follows the same trend, with the majority using mobile phones to surf the web. For instance, almost 69 million of the digital individuals in the country used mobile internet compared to over 10 million being ADSL subscribers as of mid-2022. Yet, fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants still increased significantly since the early 21st century, from close to 0.1 to almost 10 subscriptions for every 100 individuals in 2021. For mobile phones, the subscriptions per 100 people were over seven times higher than for fixed broadbands as of the same year.Internet accessibility and quality
The number of households with internet access amounted to nearly 17 million as of 2023. Of those, families living in urban centers were more digital, with a higher rate of internet use at home than in rural areas. In 2022, slightly over 81 percent of the urban households used the internet at home compared to nearly 68 percent of the rural families. As stated previously, mobile phones were at the center of internet traffic. The country had one of the lowest prices for mobile internet on the continent in U.S. dollars. However, the Freedom House Index ranked Egypt last concerning internet freedom in Africa in 2022. The country scored 27 points, sharing the last place with Ethiopia.Online activities and e-commerce
The top reasons for Egyptians to surf the internet are to stay in touch with friends and family, look for information, and watching videos, TV shows, or movies. Moreover, search engines were the most visited websites, with almost 98 percent of survey respondents. Video websites and apps, social media websites and apps, and online stores were other answers listed for the top website traffic. As digital users increase, online marketplaces have a bigger chance to grow. As of 2022, the penetration rate of the e-commerce market reached 39.4 percent, up from 18.1 percent in 2017. For those users, cash-based payment was the primary way for paying for the products or services, with up to 57 percent. This method dominated due to the low banking penetration among the population.
