In 2009 25% of urban adults said it was difficult to get credit compared with 18% in 2008. (FutureFact 2009)

This week’s theme: Futurefact 2009

The proportion of people who are afraid and alert all the time because of crime has risen from 70% in the Futurefact survey of 2000, to 80% in 2009. (FutureFact 2009)

This week’s theme: Futurefact 2009

70% of people say their quality of life in SA is much better than it would be elsewhere (50% feel this strongly). (FutureFact 2009)

This week’s theme: Futurefact 2009

Youth in towns and villages are more likely to have complete confidence in the ANC Youth League than their city counterparts (48% vs 40%). Around 27% of both youth groups have confidence in Julius Malema. (FutureFact 2009)

This week’s theme: Futurefact 2009

In the 2008 Futurefact survey 72% of youth aged 16-24 said they intended to vote in the forthcoming election while in the 2009 survey, only 47% claimed to have actually done so. (FutureFact 2009)

This week’s theme: Futurefact 2009

The average revenue per user (ARPU) of Vodacom customers is R140 per month. Thus 7,143 customers are required to fund Alan Knott-Craig’s R1 million per month post-retirement retainer. (Vodacom press release 2 February 2010, www.timeslive.co.za)

This week’s theme: Cell phones in SA

9.5 million South African adults say MTN is their cellular network provider. 7% (642,000) use the MTN banking facility, the MTN Mobile Money account. (AMPS2009A)

This week’s theme: Cell phones in SA

South Africa’s current mobile interconnect rate is 125c per minute, to be reduced to 89c from 1 March 2010. In 1994, it was 20c, worth about 50c in today’s terms. (mybroadband.co.za, StatsSA)

This week’s theme: Cell phones in SA

In 2000, 74% of African cell phone customers were South African. By 2008 this proportion had dropped to 19%. (Information Society Statistical Profiles 2009 Africa, ITU)

This week’s theme: Cell phones in SA

MTN’s South African subscriber base is 16.4 million, Vodacom claims 27.1 million customers, and Cell C has roughly 6.5 million. This brings the total claimed South African cell phone subscriber base to 50 million, more than the total population of South Africa, 49.1 million. (mtn-investor.com, Vodacom News Release 2 Feb 2010, www.ogertelecom.com, LFS 2009Q3)

This week’s theme: Cell phones in SA