Abstract
The uptake of advanced mobile data services in South Africa has been slow, even though it is currently the largest cellular market and has one of the most advanced mobile telecommunication industries in Africa. This apparent contradiction forms the subject of this article. It presents the findings from a survey in South Africa that looked at the adoption of a number of data services, including content services, web browsing, email, MMS, mobile games, mobile banking and mobile chats. It was found that, apart from SMS, users were indeed generally slow to adopt any of the 3G data services. The article lists and discusses the major obstacles and inhibitors to this adoption as mentioned by the respondents. It also reports on what mobile users perceived could be done to promote the adoption of mobile services. This research should, therefore, provide useful insights to researchers interested in mobile technology adoption in Africa as well as the providers of mobile data services.