New research from Ipsos Mendelsohn has found that the top fifth of US households by income spend more time online than the rest of the population.
The study also found that as the rich get richer, they stay online for even longer each week.
The Affluent Survey focuses on $100,000+ income households, representing about 20% of homes in the US (and more than 50% of total incomes).
This group goes online an average of 26 times per week using a computer, and 17.6 times via mobile device.
In February, eMarketer predicted that 42.8 million Britons will go online in 2012, accounting for about 70% of the population (see 70% Of UK Will Go Online In 2012).
The Ipsos Mendelsohn survey also found that the affluent spent 23.4 hours per week online, while among those earning $250,000 and up, the figure rises to 27.4 hours.
These affluent households are also early adopters for mobile, with 40% using hand-held devices to access the internet.
Bob Shullman, president, Ipsos Mendelsohn, said: “If you want to experiment [with mobile, publishers] should probably be doing it much more in the affluent space, because these people are much higher up the learning curve.”
Research from Bango found that mobile web usage is not only gaining traction in the United States but soon will surpass the UK (see US Mobile Web Usage To Overtake UK).
According to Bango data, the top five countries accessing the mobile web via Bango in July 2008 were the UK at 19.35%, the US at 18.88%, India at 10.82%, South Africa at 8.82% and Indonesia at 4.08%.
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