South Africa’s mobile and fixed home internet gap in 2025
In 2025, 78.9% of South African households could get online using a mobile device and 20.6% had fixed internet at home. The Western Cape and Limpopo had similar rates of mobile internet access, within 0.8 percentage points of each other. Their fixed home internet rates were 43.8 points apart. Statistics South Africa, General Household Survey 2025, Tables 14.1 and 14.3
By Freepaid · Published
Mobile and fixed internet access by province
Each percentage is a share of all households in that province. Stats SA reports the mobile and fixed rates. Freepaid calculated the gap by subtracting the fixed home internet rate from the mobile rate. General Household Survey 2025, Table 14.1, page 55, and Table 14.3, page 56
| Province | Mobile internet | Fixed internet at home | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western Cape | 80.6% | 49.7% | 30.9 points |
| Gauteng | 77.3% | 31.1% | 46.2 points |
| Eastern Cape | 71.1% | 11.6% | 59.5 points |
| Northern Cape | 68.8% | 11.6% | 57.2 points |
| Free State | 76.3% | 11.6% | 64.7 points |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 84.9% | 10.6% | 74.3 points |
| North West | 75.4% | 8.9% | 66.5 points |
| Mpumalanga | 82.4% | 7.3% | 75.1 points |
| Limpopo | 81.4% | 5.9% | 75.5 points |
| South Africa | 78.9% | 20.6% | 58.3 points |
The split also shows up by settlement type. Fixed home internet reached 33.5% of metropolitan households and 2.7% of rural households, a gap of 30.8 percentage points. For mobile internet, the corresponding rates were 78.6% and 76.4%, a gap of 2.2 points. Stats SA reports non-metro urban households separately in the same table. General Household Survey 2025, Table 14.3, page 56
How many had mobile internet without a fixed connection at home?
Stats SA gives separate totals for each type of access. A household can appear in both columns, and its members can use mobile internet at home or elsewhere. The national gap of 58.3 points sets a lower bound for the share with mobile access and no fixed home connection. Even if every household with fixed home internet also had mobile internet, subtracting all 20.6% from 78.9% would leave 58.3%.
The survey also reports that 85.6% of households had internet access by any means. Every household with mobile internet and no fixed home connection fits inside the group that had some form of internet access but no fixed connection. That puts the upper bound at 65.0% (85.6% minus 20.6%). The actual share falls somewhere within that approximate range, allowing for rounding. Households within it may also go online at work or use public Wi-Fi. General Household Survey 2025, Table 14.1, page 55
A household counts as having internet access if at least one member could access or used the internet. The survey figures leave open how many people share a connection, how much data they use and whether their mobile service is prepaid. Operator subscription counts answer a separate question about the number of active subscriptions reported. Freepaid’s prepaid mobile market reference
Sources
Statistics South Africa’s 2025 General Household Survey reports access by province in Table 14.1 and by settlement type in Table 14.3. Freepaid calculated the differences and the national bounds from the published percentages. Survey report, pages 55–57 · Stats SA publication page · Survey PDF via World Bank Microdata Library
Last source check · 3 November 2026.