Elections and YouTube views have been the key drivers of internet traffic from Africa since 2012, Google Transparency has revealed.
Showing an increaseof 200 per cent, African online traffic was boosted significantly by YouTube views, doubling in April 2013 with elections, political events and submarine cable launches taking place in certain countries.
Elections have been the main drivers of online traffic in Kenya and Angola.
Chad, Guinea and Liberia have experienced exceptional acceleration in internet use, though traffic trends displayed by Google Transparency are used for country comparisons rather than absolute traffic.
In this way traffic shown as decreasing may not really be dropping, but merely not growing in comparison to the global average.
Notable spikes were evident in the Central African Republic (CAR), where internet use tripled, while in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Congo online activity quadrupled and quintupled respectively.
August 2012 and April 2013 are noted as the two months of significant growth of internet traffic in most African countries.
