South Africa’s favourite tech brands

A recent Analytico survey has revealed the preferred tech brands among IT professionals, executives, and other early adopters.

The survey attracted 2,500 responses and asked participants about their favourite headphones, router, storage, and computer security brands.

It also asked respondents to select their preferred crypto exchange and gaming platform.

The survey results are summarised below.

Headphones

Headphones can be used for listening to music, attending meetings, or blocking out noise, and can vary from a free set received with a phone to audiophile units costing thousands.

JBL has the clear lead as the most popular headphone brand in South Africa, with 23% of the vote.

Sennheiser and Sony are in a close battle for second place, while Apple and Bose round out the other brands preferred by 10% or more.

Gaming

Many South Africans love to play games, and it is clear that PC is the preferred platform among IT professionals.

PlayStation easily wins the popularity contest among the consoles with double the votes compared to Xbox, both miles ahead of Nintendo.

A surprising number of people prefer gaming on mobile devices because it is so easily accessible.

Routers

Routers are not something most people think about until their network stops working.

While many consumers use whatever router their ISP provides, many power users prefer to set up their home network with higher-end equipment to ensure they have uninterrupted internet.

Huawei and TP-link are the two most popular router brands in South Africa, each capturing the preference of about a third of the market.

Storage

Storage devices have evolved over the last decade, with solid state technology overtaking mechanical hard disks and their spinning platters as the most popular main storage device (boot drive, for the techies).

Hard drives remain popular as the cost-effective option for those who need to store enormous amounts of data.

MicroSD cards and USB flash drives have also exploded in size.

Samsung and Seagate are the two most popular brands when consumers are looking to buy storage devices in 2024.

Computer Security

Windows’ built-in antivirus solution, Defender, is the go-to security solution for around a third of IT professionals, likely because of the ease of use and lack of any necessary setup.

Aftermarket security solutions remain popular, especially with the surge in ransomware attacks in recent years.

Avast and McAfee are the two most popular aftermarket security solutions, while Norton, Eset and Bitdefender are all preferred by around 8% of respondents.

Crypto

Over 5.8 million South Africans own a crypto asset, meaning that nearly 10% of the country’s population owns some form of cryptocurrency, according to an FSCA market study.

The FSCA declared cryptocurrencies a financial product in October 2022, and has closed the first round of applications for a new crypto asset service provider licence.

This will bring exchanges and other crypto service providers under the FSCA’s regulatory purview.

Most IT professionals and executives in South Africa prefer early mover Luno for their crypto asset needs, while Binance is a popular international alternative.