One Third Of All UK Homes Now Connected To The Net

Over a third of all households in the UK now have internet access, some 9 million homes, according to new research by NetValue. Those connected are also using the internet more often and for longer periods, with usage in March 2001 higher than ever before at an average of 24 sessions over 10.5 days.

Within the last six months, 1.4 million households went online while more than a quarter of all online households (26.6%) connected in the last year. On average, there were 1.41 active users per household in the month, taking the total number of home internet users to over the 12 million mark for the first time.

The gap between male and female surfers appears to be decreasing with the number of women using the net rising significantly last month. There was an increase of 320,000 in the number of women visiting e-commerce sites between February and March.

The number of people visiting directory websites has increased in the past six months, rising from 1.18 million in October 2000 to 1.67 million in March 2001, with the success of yell.com has contributing significantly to this increase. Yell.com was the top directory site in March, attracting 907,000 unique visitors and dell.com was the largest advertiser, reaching 4,983 individuals with its online ads.

www.netvalue.com