Only 13% Ugandan Internet Users Use It For Business, The Rest For Social Chats

The 2024 National Population and Housing census results show that 9% of individuals aged 10 years and above (2.8m people) used internet facilities in the 12 months preceding the census.

And of these, the report says, 67% used it for social networking while 16% used it for academic purposes and 13% used it for business or office work. The UBOS census report says only 1% used the internet to access health-related information.

 The report further shows that internet usage was higher in urban areas (17%) compared to rural areas (4%). There were notable differences in internet use by sex with 11% of males having used the internet compared to 8% of females. Disparities by sub region showed that Buganda (19%) had the highest proportion of internet users while Karamoja had the lowest proportion of internet users (3%).

The same report shows that 43 percent of individuals aged 10 years and above (13.6 million persons) in Uganda owned a mobile phone as of May this year (when the census was conducted). The report adds that 56.7% of the population doesn’t have a mobile phone.