E-commerce in Angola

E-commerce

Internet access

With a population of over 26 million people in 2017, and almost 6 million internet users, Angola is not a highly connected country. Access to the internet in Angola is one of the lowest in the world, with a penetration rate a little over 22%. The main reasons for low internet and mobile phone penetration are high costs and poor infrastructure. The access is limited mostly to urban areas, given that in rural areas voice and data services can be twice as expensive and of much poorer quality, as a result of poor infrastructure. Most of those who do have access to the internet use mobile phones rather than home computers. Mobile broadband access is available to just 12% of the population and only around 8% of Angolans have home internet access. Google is by far the most popular search engine in the country. As of July 2018, the leading search engines in Angola ranked by market share were Google (92.41%), Bing (4.3%), Yahoo! (2.27%), Baidu (0.48%), MSN (0.21%) and YANDEX RU (0.09%).

E-commerce market

E-commerce in Angola is still limited as most of the population doesn't have access to the internet. However, there is great future potential. Given the small current size of the market, there is still no official data on e-commerce revenue. A big limitation in the market is the lack of use of credit cards and other internationally accepted payment options. Even though over half of adults in Angolan have banking accounts, access to international credit cards is extremely restricted. When it comes to domestic purchases, debit cards are growing in popularity, but the most popular payment is cash upon delivery. Domestic B2C is not wide spread in Angola, but it is slowly growing with the creation of several domestic e-Commerce websites. Payment is usually made through debit cards and local courier service deliver orders, as the mail delivery system is unreliable. Cross-border e-Commerce is restricted to middle and upper income citizens, given that access to international credit cards is restricted. Purchases are often made from major international stores such as Amazon, Ebay and Alibaba. The majority of people connected to the internet use mobile phones as their method of access. That is also true when it comes to making purchases online. Those who use laptops and computers to make online purchases normally use their mobile phone or tablet as well.