We are truly in the mobilgeddon age, a term coined by search engine optimization experts to refer to the increasing usage of mobile devices over the traditional desktop PCs and laptops.
Africa is well on board the mobilgeddon ship, if not captaining the ship. Take, for instance, a case study of Hellofood in Kenya. An online marketplace where consumers can order food delivery from a number of leading restaurants in the country, and get food delivered right to their doorstep.
Hellofood did a survey on which devices people use to place their orders. It emerged that for the year 2015-2016, 65 percent of the orders were made on a smartphone via the Hellofood mobile app. Desktop orders stand at a very meager 25 percent.
There has been a drastic change in mobile usage and Internet subscription compared to the records held in 2014. In mobile usage, there has been an 88% increase while Internet subscription has seen 74% increase. Android OS remains the leading platform for mobile devices commanding 95% of the market while the other mobile operating systems are sharing the remaining 5%.
“We have seen more restaurants moving to sell on Hellofood in a bid to tap into the online market. This year we have signed KFC and Ocean Basket bringing to over 270 the number of restaurants on the platform. We are looking to leverage on the massive adoption of mobile applications in Kenya to drive more sales,” said Duncan Muchangi, the MD at Hellofood Kenya.
Another interesting observation that has been made by the Hellofood research is that the peak for customers’ orders is between 11-3 PM (around lunch hours) and 4-9 PM (around dinner hours). However, over the weekends, the orders subside; probably because people like to go and eat out as opposed to ordering in. This report further reveals that the average number of visits per customer using a mobile device is two times lower than users using desktop computer.