No longer a minority group, for the first time, female internet users outnumbered male ones in the US during the first quarter of this year. MMXI Europe’s parallel study in the States by Media Metrix and Jupiter Communications found that during May females aged 2 or older at home and work represented 50.4% of all unique visitors to the web.
The number of women online is also growing more rapidly than the number of people online as a whole, with the number of US users in the 12-17-year-old female group increasing more than 125% year on year.
Female online users in Europe are also showing a steady increase, with 14+ females using the internet in Germany growing from 27.3% of the country’s online population in January to 31.7% in June.
The survey found that women in Europe don’t tend to ‘surf’ the internet, but prefer to gather specific information, with popular sites including those covering retail, careers and travel. Women in the UK make up the majority of visitors to Tescodirect.com and Tesco.co.uk, Egreetings.com and women’s portal Handbag.com. In the US women were found to focus even more on retail sites.
“Women using the internet tend to be focussed on practicality.” says Arielle Dinard, managing director of MMXI Europe. “They don’t waste much time on a variety of different sites but return to those which save them time or money.”
The UK has not been slow to recognise the increasing market for websites targeted at women. Recent launches have included IPC’s beme.com and DMGT’s Charlottestreet.com. When BBC Worldwide launched its glossy title Eve last week, (see First Issue Review: Eve- Naked Ambition From BBC Worldwide), an accompanying website was designed to run alongside the magazine copy, while Natmags is preparing to make its first full consumer web debut with a UK version of popular US site Women.com.
The sites already launched have enjoyed varying degrees of success, but the UK lags behind the US in the percentage of women online – 35.9% of the internet population over here is female, compared to 44.2% in Sweden, 31.7% in Germany and 33.4% in France. Always some years ahead in internet trends, it is yet to be seen whether the US’ pattern of high uptake of the net will be repeated in this country to the extent that the UK internet population achieves a 50/50 male/female split.
MMXI: www.mediametrix.com
