Smartphones Destroying Internet Cafe Business
The Internet café industry, which exploded in the early 1990s and peaked in the 2000s, has already crashed, according to available data, with roughly 41.69 million mobile connections in Ghana as of January 2021.
Between January 2020 and January 2021, the number of mobile connections in Ghana increased by 3.1 million (+8.1%).
In January 2021, the number of mobile connections in Ghana was comparable to 132.8 percent of the total population, reducing the use of Internet cafés.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr. Prince Kyei-Frimpong, who works at the Smart Consult Café in Tema, said that the introduction of cell phones made it easier for customers to access the Internet at will.
Mr Kyei-Frimpong stated that the widespread availability and use of smartphones has impacted the internet café industry since most people utilized their own mobile devices to conduct any other internet-based transactions that would have otherwise been conducted at an Internet café.
According to him, the majority of people who use the internet café are students who are registering for classes online and printing documents.
Mr. Kyei-Frimpong pointed out that, in order to attract clients, operators had to charge less for the services they provide.
Mr. Hudu Odonkor, Manager of Minkom IT Solutions, Tema, acknowledged the Internet café industry’s current issues.
“People come in to print official documents like recruitment forms, check BECE placements, and other things,” he said.
People still come in for Internet access, printing, and photocopies anytime they want, although the place is rarely crowded.
