Online Usage Round-Up Q1 2008

Over two million more people used the internet in Q1 2008 than in the same period last year, according to figures released by BMRB. Growth is up 6.6% across the UK, to 31.6 million people compared to the same period last year. The figure shows online usage is slightly down on Q1 2006-2007.

The comfort and privacy of your own home continues to be the most popular location to surf the net reports the BMRB survey. 30.09 million users now log on at home, an 8.6% rise from Q107. While this reflects the number of households gaining internet access, the figures for the workplace weren’t so dramatic. People accessing the net via the workspace haven’t changed much, with a rise of 60,000, a year on year change of 5.9%. Students of the UK continue at more or less the same pace with 3.5 million scholars logging on in the name of research.

The steady levelling of the sexes continues at a very slow pace with only an extra 630,000 men than women in cyber space. This margin has been slowly narrowing since 2000 when there was a gap of 3 million. This is reflected in the Q1 year on year rise of 4.6% for men and 8.9% for women.

There are few surprises when users are broken down by age, in terms of percentages. The elder groups are still growing impressively, although the Silver Surfer Revolution seems to have calmed down somewhat. Year on year comparisons between Q1 2006 and 2007 saw a massive rise of 22.8% in users of 65 years plus. This has settled to 6.3% rise in the last year.

There has been a slowdown in the AB social grouping as internet and broadband purchasing seemed to have reached saturation point with only an extra 310,000 of this affluent grade joining the online world in the past year. In total contrast to this C2 and DE social groups are growing impressively. With the relative affordability of broadband and dial up connections DEs had a massive increase with a year on year rise of 13.3%, the highest out of any social group. In the past eight years ABs have barely doubled their numbers of the net whilst the lowest social grade have quadrupled.

BMRB: www.bmrb.co.uk