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Google Chrome knocks Internet Explorer off the top spot as the world's favourite web browser

It was not suprising to learn that Google's Chrome has overtaken Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the most widely used web browser in the world, according to statistics released today.

Data from web analytics service StatCounter showed that for the week of May 14-20 Chrome has averaged a higher share of web traffic for a full seven-day stretch.

Statcounter's data showed Chrome in the lead in the field of five major web browsers, with 32.76 per cent share of users, while IE dipped to 31.94 per cent.

The change in web browsing habits represents a remarkable decline for Internet Explorer, which four years ago boasted a market share of nearly 70 per cent.

While it is not the first time that Chrome has overtaken IE, it is the first time that Google's browser has held its position for an entire week - though still by less than a percentage point.

And while Chrome is leading the browser market worldwide, it is still lagging Microsoft's product significantly in the U.S. and the UK.

This is supported by www.pingdom.com for April 1-22, 2012. It appears that the days when IE completely dominated the browser landscape are long gone. Microsoft’s browser still has a big chunk of the market, but much less so in some regions than others. It has lost its lead in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, but remains dominant in North America and Oceania (consisting primarily of Australia).

As you can see by this map, the “big three” are no doubt IE, Firefox and Chrome. Opera and Safari are both out of the top three in all world regions.

An interesting observation is that IE, Chrome and Firefox each top two regions.

One could also argue that open source has won the browser wars. Firefox and Chrome together make up a majority part in every region.

Read more from the Daily Mail and Royal Pingdom.

Kenya Airtel ventures into loans

Airtel Kenya this week launched a mobile phone loan facility in partnership with Faulu Kenya, a microfinance provider.

Subscribers to Airtel Kenya’s mobile phone money transfer service, Airtel Money, will get loans ranging from Sh100 (USD 1.2)  to Sh10,000 (USD 120) through their handsets as the telecommunications firm seeks to grow revenues by launching new products.

Airtel Kenya will provide the mobile phone money transfer system, while Faulu Kenya be appraising and lending money to applicants. The loans will be repayable after 10 days.

Interest charges range between three and 10 per cent, with higher values attracting lesser costs.

All Airtel money subscribers who have been on the service in the past six months are eligible to apply for loans, in the new service dubbed ‘Faulu Airtel Kopa chapaa Service.’ The borrowers need not be Faulu Kenya customers.

The applicants’ debt-repayment history will be cross-checked with the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB), disqualifying those who are already black listed.

Airtel Thursday said it intends to tap into the vast customer base provided by Faulu Kenya to ease the access of its mobile money services, especially in the rural areas.

Airtel has 6,000 agents across the country against Safaricom’s Mpesa which has more than 35,000.

The majority Indian-owned firm intends to tap into Faulu’s 14,000 agents across the country to tap more subscribers.

Central Bank of Kenya data shows that by December last year, Safaricom had 15.21 million mobile money customers making it the largest mobile money transfer service, followed by Airtel which had 3.16 million customers.

Yu had 520,000 customers compared to Telkom Kenya’s 130,000, MobiKash 110,000 and Tangaza 70,000.

Airtel expects to make money through commissions that it will be charged on withdrawals. Airtel Money charges Sh15 (USD 0.2)  to withdraw Sh100 and Sh75 (USD 0.88)  to withdraw Sh10, 000. Faulu will seek to make money on the interest charges.

Airtel subscribers will apply for the loan from the convenience of their mobile phones by dialing *305# and following the menu.

Faulu Kenya managing director, John Mwara, said Faulu is exploiting technology to scale up its reach to the unbanked and semi banked by reducing costs of transactions, improving on convenience and ease of access.

“This innovation, when backed by an effective credit reference bureau, will complete mobile banking by ensuring offering of micro deposit mobilisation which Faulu already offers through Airtel money,” said Mr Mwara.

“We have put aside enough cash reserves for this and expect to be transferring an average of Sh1 billion to Sh1.6 billion daily within the next four months and an average of Sh4 billion by the end of the year.”

He added that the Kenya’s rural environment is characterized by poor communications infrastructure, relatively low population density, low levels of literacy and relatively undiversified economies and as such it is only the use of such technology platforms that can increase financial inclusion.

Airtel partnership with Faulu comes on the background of Central Bank of Kenya CBK report that shows that although transfer of money from person to person is still dominant, there is an increased use of mobile phone services by corporates.

Data from the CBK show that in the month of December 2011 alone, M-Pesa moved Sh116.6 billion (USD 1.37 billion) , miles ahead of Tangaza’s Sh1.31 billion (USD 154 million) , which is about three times the combined share of the other four rivals for that month.

Airtel Money transferred Sh420 million (USD 4.94 million) , Orange and Yu Sh20 million (USD 235,000)  each while MobiKash handled Sh4 million (USD 47,000).

Posted in MobileMoneyAfrica.com

Top 20 Internet Countries

Nobody can deny that today the Internet is fully consolidated worldwide nor that the web has changed the world. All of us, this includes you and me, are very fortunate individuals because we are living the most wonderful moment of humanity. Everything in the world is changing for the better, thanks to the advances and the daily developments of technology. There are more opportunities for progress, at all levels, than ever before for everyone.

Solid facts confirm that we are living in the Global Village predicted and coined in the 1950s by Marshall McLuhan. The "Social Web" can be considered, in our opinion, a consequence and a necessity of the "Global Village". More and more people join the global village everyday. Approximately one out of every three persons in the world already is inside the global village, and one out of every seven persons in the world is inside the social web.
In the last century literacy was considered the ability to write and read. However, today in the 21st century, literacy should have a much broader scope and include "digital literacy", the ability to use a computer and to surf the Internet. Most Governments understand this and offer free online training. In the USA, for example, this is the destination to go for digital literacy resources.
Miniwatts Marketing Group have analyzed the number of Internet users worldwide and the results as of March 31, 2012 according to the number of users and posted the results in a table and three graphs available at top 20 Internet countries and posted below.

 

 

The results are not really a surprise to anyone. The countries with the largest populations are at the top of the list. By world regions, Asia is in first place represented by eight countries, followed by Europe represented by seven countries. However, please keep in mind that these stats do not represent a competition between countries and that their purpose is simply to show the global growth of the Internet.

Sourced from Enrique de Argaez, CEO, Miniwatts Marketing Group, Miniwatts de Colombia Ltda. www.internetworldstats.com

Safaricom discontinues unlimited internet bundles

Safaricom yesterday announced that from midnight April 30, 2012, it was discontinuing the sale of its unlimited data bundle product.
The unlimited data bundles, launched last year by Safaricom, were designed for mobile broadband users on their 3G handsets or 3G enabled modems to access unlimited Internet for a set duration of time such as the daily, weekly and monthly variations.

When commenting on the review, Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore indicated that this decision was arrived at after a careful analysis of consumer trends. “As a business, we have found it necessary to focus our energies on providing quality data access to the majority of our internet users. This means that we have to sacrifice the provision of our unlimited bandwidth to a minority whose usage has had a negative impact on the overall data experience.”

In a statement, Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore said Safaricom made the decision to focus its energies on providing quality data access to the majority of its internet users.

“This means that we have to sacrifice the provision of our unlimited bandwidth to a minority, whose usage has had a negative impact on the overall data experience,” he explained.

Safaricom Corporate Affairs Director Nzioka Waita said less than five percent of the company’s customer base on mobile data use unlimited bundles, however they take up significant bandwidth that has had a big impact on the quality of service for majority of users.

“The product is not profitable to the extent that the interference it causes with other uses and the uptake of other bundles. The 3G mobile broadband is a shared service; as soon as you have 10 or 15 users on the service and three or four of them are running a big torrenting service, they hog the bandwidth,” he revealed.

Safaricom has dominated the Kenyan data market with 90 percent of mobile broadband subscribers and over five million internet users, which has seen its competitors move to revamp their unlimited offerings to attract customers.

“Unlimited products currently in the market have speeds not exceeding 512 kilobits per second (kpbs). So when you get to a cap you are then lowered further to about 128 kbps and some instances 64 kbps. So, in fairness there is no operator offering truly unlimited in terms of volume and speed,” Waita said.

Waita added that there are a number of bundles for high users within the current limited bundles Safaricom offers.

“The heavy users who want unlimited bandwidth should consider moving to fixed broadband services like fibre or Wimax where they can consume as much as they want,” he said.

Safaricom, however, reassured its data customers that it will shortly be offering new internet packages to cater for its high volume usage internet customers.
Last month, Safaricom became the first mobile service provider in Kenya to launch the 42 Mbps 3G speeds in selected sites around Nairobi.