Worldwide Internet Access: 429 Million People.

Nielsen//NetRatings released its First Quarter 2001 Global Internet Trends report on Internet access and penetration, finding that 429 million people have Internet access around the world.

The report measures 27 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

The Q1 results showed that the US and Canada still account for the largest proportion of the world’s Internet access, with 41% of the global audience located in those countries. Europe, the Middle East and Africa has the second highest proportion of access, with 27% of the world’s Internet population, followed by Asia Pacific with 20%, and trailed by Latin America with 4%.

“In terms of penetration levels, just over a quarter of European households have Internet access via a home PC, compared to one third of the households in Asia Pacific and nearly half of American households,” said Richard Goosey, chief of measurement science and analytics, ACNielsen eRatings.com. “Don’t expect this American domination to last long, though. Compared to a year ago, significantly more households in Europe and Asia Pacific now have a PC in the home and a greater proportion of homes are making use of that PC to connect to the Internet. Over the next twelve months, another 9% of European households and 12% of Asia Pacific households plan on acquiring Internet access.”

Goosey also noted that Germany and the UK continue to dominate Europe in terms of Internet access, with Germany, the UK, Italy and France together accounting for two-thirds of the European households with Internet access via home PC. In the first quarter of 2001, Germany recorded the greatest increase in terms of number of households with home Internet access. The three European countries – Germany, the UK and Italy – with the highest number of people with home Internet access together account for half the total European Internet population.

In Asia Pacific, South Korea dominates in terms of the number of households with home Internet access, alone accounting for 45% of the number of households with home-PC access in that region. Together, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia account for 86% of the total number of people with home PC Internet access in that region.

The findings are from the Nielsen//NetRatings Global Internet Trends service, a quarterly subscription service reporting key Internet statistics and attitudes drawn from more than 40,000 surveys conducted between January and March 2001 using consistent research methodology. The Q1 reports cover: Austria, Belgium/Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, as well as select measures for the US, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Israel.

Home Access Dominant Worldwide

In both Europe and Asia Pacific, home access is a more common source of Internet access than work based access (see Table 1). Even for those who do have Internet access at work, home is more likely to be the location of use of the Internet.
“Generally, home access and use of the Internet is more firmly entrenched in the four Asian countries of Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan than in the Pacific countries of Australia and New Zealand, where work based usage is more commonly observed than in the Asian countries,” Goosey said.

“In Europe, home access is particularly dominant in the Netherlands and Italy, where home access rates are at least double the work access rates. In most countries, the home access rate has increased since the end of 2000, while work access rates tend to be much more stable. Clearly use of the Internet at work – or elsewhere – is not the cultural norm yet in these regions, which could impact the growth of business-to-business commerce ventures in Europe and Asia Pacific.”

Penetration of mobile telephones among individuals is also greater in Asia than in the Pacific. Having household access to multiple mobile telephones is also more common in Asia, where Hong Kong has the highest level of household and personal penetration of mobile telephones and has maintained that position over the past three quarters. New Zealand has exhibited a relatively strong increase (7%) in rate of use of a mobile telephone by people 16+ since the end of 2000. In Asia Pacific, most homes have only one source of Internet access, though in Hong Kong and Taiwan more than one in five homes have two or more sources of Internet access.

In Europe, half of Europeans aged 16+ have use of a mobile telephone, a ratio that increases to three in four in Finland. The degree of incremental access available to a household through devices other than a home-owned PC remains relatively steady in Europe at between 1 and 9%, with most countries in the 3 to 5% range. The UK and Ireland are the two countries most likely to have households accessing the Internet through sources other than a home-owned PC.

In both regions, the majority of access to the Internet through a source other than a home PC is through a work PC, rather than through a source such as a mobile telephone, a PalmPilot or a television.

Shopping and Buying Online is Most Common in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and Denmark

Nielsen//NetRatings found that in the first quarter of 2001, one in six European adults used the Internet to seek pricing or product information on products and services. One in 11 adults actually made a purchase online in the same period. In Europe, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland led the region in terms of web-based browsing and purchasing, while Belgium/Luxembourg, Italy and Spain had relatively few people browsing or purchasing via the Internet (see Table 2).

Goosey noted that half the Europeans who have browsed for information during the past six months have purchased, with browsing to purchase rates highest in the UK, Norway and Sweden. On the other hand, Italians and Spanish are more reluctant than other Europeans to buy after having sought product information online. Goosey added that only Sweden comes close to the pervasive level of online shopping in the US, where 74% of surfers shop each month and 30% of all surfers buy online.

In Asia Pacific, adults in Australia and New Zealand are most likely to use the Internet to seek information about products and services, with one in four adults in those countries using the Internet as a source of information. Purchasing online is also most common in Australia and New Zealand, as well as South Korea, which has shown an increase in eCommerce activity since the fourth quarter of 2000. Only a very small proportion of people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have bought goods or services online.

“If a South Korean browses the Internet for information on goods or services, he or she is much more likely to buy than is the case in other countries,” Goosey said. “Three in five South Koreans who browse convert that investigation into a purchase. By contrast, only one-third of adults from Hong Kong or Taiwan who browse for information then go on to buy.”

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