South Africa’s favourite smartphone operating system revealed

When it comes to the young, vibrant population of South Africa, ever-embracing the latest in mobile technology, one smartphone operating system stands tall above its major rivals, even for some people who may not even be using it.

This is according to results from the 2025 Hypertext Mobile Survey, where over 800 of our readers answered a series of pertinent questions about how they use their smartphones and other mobile technologies. The majority, over 71 percent, said that Android was the best smartphone operating ecosystem.

Readers then followed this with iOS as the second-best and Huawei Mobile Services as third, indicating the rankings for the three most popular operating systems currently being used in South Africa.

The outcome of the selection is likely influenced by the disparity of smartphone brands being used by our readers. The majority use Android as their main operating system across different brands, with the number one being Samsung, followed by Apple and Huawei at third – it could be argued that this is the trend countrywide.

In total, around 66 percent of respondents use Android OS on their mobiles, which means that there is a percentage overlap. It could be because some Huawei or Apple users also believe Android is the superior operating system. Samsung was also chosen in terms of leading in innovation by over 70 percent of respondents.

Per Google’s own data, there are 3.5 billion active Android OS users around the world. In South Africa specifically, data from 2024 indicated that Android was the dominant system for users, with around 84 percent of South African smartphones running the Google platform.

The difference can be explained by the fact that the respondents, our readers, may represent a more tech-engaged audience outside of lower-cost bands, meaning larger Apple and Huawei representation compared to a wider general population group. This drops the Android share for our survey, but in itself does come with nuggets of information.

Specifically, the majority of tech-savvy readers still believe that Android is the best OS.

Another important part of the OS question is usage, and respondents also indicated what they spent the majority of their time doing on their smartphones other than communicating and were told to select up to three activities.

As no surprise, “Browsing the Web” was by far the most common activity for respondents on a day-to-day basis at just under 60 percent, while mobile gaming was the lowest at 20 percent.

Other notable activities included Social Media at 58 percent, Entertainment at 44 percent, Streaming Music at 43 percent and Reading the News at 42 percent. Performance continues to be an essential factor when South Africans consider buying a smartphone, and browsing the web and social media usage may be influencing this decision.

Activities such as hotspotting, work and taking pictures or capturing videos were all on the lower end of the chart.

From this data, we can tell that at least for the respondents, smartphone usage is driven by the need to receive new information and to be social with others over the internet. South Africans want fast access to the latest information right now when searching the web or going on TikTok.

Despite the fact that it is the largest gaming sector in the country, gaming remains a niche activity for respondents. This could be another case of a more tech-savvy group preferring to game elsewhere, like on PC or console.

Finally, despite its enormous importance in marketing new smartphones, usage of the camera system was on the lower end of the chart. Perhaps if a company devises a smartphone that can access more information faster than any other, there would be a singular leader in the worldwide phone race.

The survey shows above all that South Africans are, as of 2025, intrinsically attached to their smartphones as keys to the wider world, where information, communication and entertainment all flow into and out of the beeping, flashing rectangle in their pockets.