Seventy-six per cent of the African business community uses a smartphone, while 64 per cent make use of feature phones, a survey carried out by the African Business Panel has revealed.
Laptops are used by 94 per cent, while tablets are only utilised by 47 per cent.
Concerning security, the survey revealed laptops are the most protected by software security (87 per cent), followed by desktop PCs (76 per cent) and tablets (46 per cent), while smartphones are the least protected with just 44 per cent of participants saying they have installed software security on their devices.
“The main reasons for not installing security software are high costs (39 per cent), the lack of urgency (32 per cent) and complexity (17 per cent). The most used software security is McAfee (31 per cent), followed by Microsoft (30 per cent), Kaspersky (28 per cent), AVG/Grisoft (28 per cent) and Symantec (16 per cent),” the survey said.
“65 per cent of the participants use their smartphones several times a day, 54 per cent use their laptops just as frequently, with users of tablets following at 44 per cent. 22 percent never use their personally owned mobile phone for work-related communication as opposed to the smartphone, of which 6 per cent of the owners say they never use it”.
The survey said Samsung is the leading smartphone brand in Africa.
It said: “30 per cent of respondents that have a personal smartphone, have a Samsung. BlackBerry is runner-up (22 per cent), iPhone comes in third place (19 per cent), prior to Nokia (11 per cent), HTC (6 per cent), Sony Ericsson (2 per cent), LG (1 per cent) and Motorola (1 per cent).”
