Almost 700 Million People used the Internet in March

[Ming]

Thursday, May 11, 2006
Center for Media Research - Mediapost.com

694 Million People Used the Internet in March
In the recent announcement of the launch of comScore World Metrix, by comScore, they included data representing 694 million people, age 15+, from countries that comprise 99 percent of the global Internet population. This 14 percent of the world's total population in this age group used the Internet worldwide from all locations in March 2006.

The comScore World Metrix includes measurement of the major Asian countries, including China, Japan, India and Korea, which represent nearly 25 percent of the total worldwide online population (or 168.1 million users), and which, in the aggregate, are 11 percent larger than the U.S. (152 million users).

[b]Peter Daboll, president and CEO of comScore Media Metrix, notes that "Today, the online audience in the U.S. represents less than a quarter of Internet users across the globe, versus ten years ago when it accounted for two-thirds of the global audience."[b/]

Top 15 Worldwide Online Populations by Country, Among Visitors Age 15+


Unique Visitors (000)

Worldwide Total
694,260

United States
152,046

China
74,727

Japan
52,100

Germany
31,813

United Kingdom
30,190

South Korea
24,645

France
23,884

Canada
18,996

Italy
16,834

India
16,713

Brazil
13,186

Spain
12,452

Netherlands
10,969

Russia
10,833

Australia
9,735

Source: comScore World Metrix, March 2006

Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafe and, access from mobile phones or PDAs.


The report also shows the top 15 countries ranked by average hours spent online per visitor for March 2006. Israel led the list, with the average user spending 57.5 hours online during the month - twice as much time compared to the average person in the U.S, which did not rank in the top 15 countries.

Average Monthly Hours Online per Unique Visitor in Top 15 Countries (Visitors Age 15+)


Avg. Hours per Visitor March 2006

Worldwide
31.3

Israel
57.5

Finland
49.3

South Korea
47.2

Netherlands
43.5

Taiwan, Province of China
43.2

Sweden
41.4

Brazil
41.2

Hong Kong
41.2

Portugal
39.8

Canada
38.4

Germany
37.2

Denmark
36.8

France
36.8

Norway
35.4

Venezuela
35.3

Source: comScore World Metrix, March 2006

Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafe and, access from mobile phones or PDAs.


And, in a sneak preview of the top 15 media properties worldwide, the release notes that MSN- Microsoft Sites topped the list with 538.6 million global users, while Yahoo! Sites led all global properties in page views with 137.2 billion page views during March.

Mr. Daboll commented, "While the "big three" properties remain consistent among worldwide and U.S. audiences, Wikipedia has emerged as a site that continues to increase in popularity, both globally and in the U.S. ..."

Top 15 Online Properties Worldwide (Visitors Age 15+ March 2006)


Unique Visitors (000)

Worldwide Total
694,260

MSN-Microsoft Sites
538,578

Google Sites
495,788

Yahoo! Sites
480,228

eBay
269,690

Time Warner Network
241,525

Amazon Sites
154,640

Wikipedia Sites
131,949

Ask Network
127,377

Adobe Sites
115,774

Lycos, Inc.
109,394

CNET Networks
107,589

Apple Computer, Inc.
98,622

Real.com Network
78,104

Monster Worldwide
74,152

Wanadoo Sites
73,446

Source: comScore World Metrix, March 2006

Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafe and, access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Some interesting stats...

[Richelieu]

Yes. I liked this one :

Taiwan, Province of China

[Ming]

I thought that was kind of funny as well

[Az]

Israel led the list, with the average user spending 57.5 hours online during the month

[VetLegion]

That's not much, below 2h a day. I beat that easily

[DanS]

Do we have any numbers on how many people watched TV in March? Could be an interesting comparison.

[DanS]

Originally posted by VetLegion
That's not much, below 2h a day. I beat that easily

I spend about 10 or 12 hours a day on the net.

[Last Conformist]

Re: Almost 700 Million People used the Internet in March

Originally posted by Ming
So many to ban, so little time ...

[Harovan]

After subtracting the part, that is only out for pr0n, a mere rest of 1 million remains.

[Ming]

Originally posted by DanS
Do we have any numbers on how many people watched TV in March? Could be an interesting comparison.

A tough question to answer...
Nielsen (the leading ratings provider) estimates there are 277.93 million potential viewers in the U.S. 2 and older. A hit show like American Idol can draw over 30 million viewers per airing. No where have I ever seen an a "total" monthly viewer number. But I would guess that the number would be between 225 to 250 million.

However, you can take a look at time spent viewing.
The latest public numbers go through 2004
And these are hours per DAY, not month.

Men 4:26
Women 5:07
Teens 3:07
Children 3:16

on a household basis, the average is just over 8 hours.
But this includes whenever the TV is on, no matter what it is being used for... which would include video games.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
After subtracting the part, that is only out for pr0n, a mere rest of 1 million remains.

only the warez and mp3 people would be left after that.

[Jon Miller]

I haven't been doing mp3, warez, or porn, and I spend tons of time on the internet...

JM

[DanS]

Originally posted by Ming
A tough question to answer...
Nielsen (the leading ratings provider) estimates there are 277.93 million potential viewers in the U.S. 2 and older. A hit show like American Idol can draw over 30 million viewers per airing. No where have I ever seen an a "total" monthly viewer number. But I would guess that the number would be between 225 to 250 million.

However, you can take a look at time spent viewing.
The latest public numbers go through 2004
And these are hours per DAY, not month.

Men 4:26
Women 5:07
Teens 3:07
Children 3:16

on a household basis, the average is just over 8 hours.
But this includes whenever the TV is on, no matter what it is being used for... which would include video games.

I wonder what it would be in India and China or whatever.

There are a couple of aspects to this that are interesting to me. The internet has an incredibly long tail, such that ads displayed in marginal areas might actually make a lot of money to people like Google. Add in the small business ad market that can't be reached by TV but can by the internet and this should be very lucrative.

Also, 2 hours a day on the internet should be a lot more valuable from an advertiser's perspective than 5 hours a day watching TV. I would guess that over time, the magnitude of ad spending on each area would reflect that.

[MRT144]

thats it? i was expecting more!

[Solver]

700 million sounds like a lot. If that's true, then the Internet is finally starting to become sort of widespread.

Then again, it remains very much a toy of the people in advanced nations. As is easy to see, most web users come from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan or other advanced countries. Brazil or China have high absolute numbers because the populations are huge, but the percentage of Internet users in those countries is actually somewhat low. Ditto Russia.

If we look at the percentage of a country's population that use the Net, we'd again have some top advanced countries in the list - US, Israel, Japan, UK, Germany, France - whereas most of the world geographically is offline. All of Africa has little Internet usage, same goes for Asian countries except Japan, the percentages in South America don't seem too high, either...

What will truly be a great day for the Net is when economically less-advanced countries, in the tier of Egypt, Paraguay, Russia, Nigeria and the line will have decent Net usage. Well, Nigeria has great Net usage when it goes for spam.