Internet Joins The Mainstream Media
Internet usage has continued its inexorable rise in most countries and across the world, the web is increasingly regarded as an essential tool in everyday life. These are the findings of a new report by the global market research company Ipsos-Reid.
“The internet is in advanced stages of growth in the US and is becoming a necessity to many of the few adult Americans who had resisted going online before,” said Brian Cruikshank, one of the authors of the study. “Because it’s all around us, being used in so many ways – from communications to transactions to entertainment – it’s become a central way that we navigate our lives.”
The popularity of high-speed connections has driven up internet usage in the Far East but the strongest growth has occurred in the UK where 50% of those questioned said they had accessed the web in the last month. These increases partly reflect the falling price of PCs and ISPs in the past few years.
“In markets such as South Korea, the United Kingdom and Japan, where approximately half of the adult population is going online, a critical mass of users is fast approaching the state reached in North America in the late 90s, when internet use broke out into the mass market,” noted Cruikshank.
A number of developing countries have also reported significant gains. In the last two years, internet usage has doubled in urban India and hit 30% in urban China. However, cities in Mexico and Brazil have only seen a modest increase in online activity.
Despite the regional disparities, it is apparent that the web is continuing to attract new disciples and a recent forecast estimated that there will be 665 million internet users worldwide by the end of 2002 (see Global Online Population Increases By A Fifth).
| Global Internet Usage | |||
| % of Past 30-day users | |||
| Country | 2000 | 2002 | Difference |
| US | 59 | 72 | 13 |
| Canada | 60 | 62 | 2 |
| South Korea | 45 | 53 | 8 |
| UK | 35 | 50 | 15 |
| Japan | 33 | 47 | 14 |
| Germany | 37 | 43 | 6 |
| Urban Mexico | 33 | 37 | 4 |
| France | 30 | 37 | 7 |
| Urban China | 21 | 30 | 9 |
| Urban Brazil | 22 | 24 | 2 |
| Urban India | 9 | 19 | 10 |
| Urban Russia | 6 | 8 | 2 |
| Source: Ipsos-Reid, December 2002 | |||
