Internet use has risen rapidly in Uganda

The report, which reveals that internet usage is defined by mobile phones and social media, is based on 2,741 respondents.

“In just the past three years, the number of citizens who had accessed the internet in the previous four weeks on their mobile phone increased from 15% to 24%. There was a similar increase, though from a smaller starting point, in the number who had accessed the internet from a computer,” reads part of the report.

On mobile phones, the report reveals that internet usage is characterised by social interactions as 15 per cent chat with friends and 13 per cent engage with social media. These are followed by news viewership (9 per cent) and research (9 per cent).

“All these uses of the internet have increased substantially since 2021, while over the same period, the number of citizens who report using the internet for sending and receiving email has declined,” says the report.

However, the same report indicates that the vast majority of citizens (76 per cent) reported that they did not access the internet for any purpose in the previous four weeks.

According to data by Twaweza, WhatsApp is the leading social networking service used by Ugandans, with two out of ten citizens (20 percent) using the service, up from one out of ten (11 percent) just three years earlier.

Internet use in Uganda pulse uganda

This is followed by Facebook (14 percent) and TikTok (9 percent). X and Instagram are used by only a very small percentage of citizens, almost all well-educated residents of Greater Kampala.

According to DataReportal, an online reference library offering hundreds of free reports packed with data, insights, and trends, showed how digital adoption and use in Uganda has grown.

As of early 2024, there were 13.30 million internet users in Uganda at the start of 2024, when internet penetration stood at 27.0 percent.

Again, as of early 2024, Uganda was home to 2.60 million social media users in January 2024, equating to 5.3 per cent of the total population.

Finally, a total of 33.34 million cellular mobile connections were active in Uganda in early 2024, with this figure equivalent to 67.7 percent of the total population.