UK Home Net Access Hits 39%, But Growth Plateaus

Gender gap closes The data show that the gap between men and women using the web has closed considerably in recent months. The proportion of men accessing the Net remained fairly static between January 2001 (57%) and February 2002 (58%), whilst the percentage of women accessing rose from 45% to 54% over the same period.

Comment Whilst there has been a steady growth in household penetration of the Net in the UK, the rate of growth has slowed appreciably in recent quarters and remained unchanged period on period in Q4, as the graph here shows. This perhaps indicates that we are reaching a ceiling or saturation point in demand.

The fact that 43% of non-users are not bothering to set up internet access due to ‘lack of interest’ suggests that penetration growth is probably set to slow from this point on, perhaps stalling at around 45%. It is interesting to note that ‘lack of interest’ is by far the most common reason for non-use, above ‘lack of confidence/skills’ and ‘no computer for access’.

UK households with home internet access
	HH with access (million)	% of HH with access from computers	% of HH with any form of access
2000
Q1	6.5	25	not available
Q2	6.9	26	27
Q3	7.8	30	32
Q4	8.6	33	34
2001
Q1	9.2	34	36
Q2	9.5	35	38
Q3	9.7	36	39
Q4	9.8	37	39
Source: ONS, April 2002