The UK is leading Europe in internet penetration with 30.8% of the population connected to the web, but trails the US’s 49.8%, according to new statistics from NetValue. UK users log on for an average of 9.2 days per month, compared to 9.6 days for the 24.7% of Germans who are online and 11.3 for US users.
Recent research suggests that female internet users could outnumber male ones in the US (see Female Internet Users Outnumber Male Users In US). While NetValue’s figures put the number of women online in the US as just over 45%, they also revealed that female users in the US spent 32% more time surfing the net during the last quarter, viewing 30% more unique pages.
Statistics seem to indicate that the UK could follow in this trend. In July, 40.5%, or 4 million, of the UK internet population, were women. In addition, UK women’s use of email is increasing, as women made up 38.3% of all email users in the UK during July, compared to 35.7% in May.
This group is also increasing the amount of time they spend online, with UK female users’ average number of sessions on line in July being 17.1, up from 15.8 in May. At the same time, duration rose from 4.0 hours in May to 5.5 hours in July, and pages displayed from 486 in May to 655 in July.
Online advertisers looking to reach this group may consider the affinity system used by NetValue. Affinity is a ratio determined by the reach of the overall internet population and the reach for the indicated target. An affinity over 100 is considered high.
Among UK female net users, the Arts and Culture section gained the highest affinity, with 143. This was followed by Communications (128), Chat (120), E-cards (119) and Entertainment (103).
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