Four Million Brits Visit Adult Websites Monthly

The latest figures from NetValue on adult websites show that more than a quarter of the entire UK home Internet population are visitors. Research from the month of June reveals that 3.8 million home Internet users in the UK visited these websites.

Detail from the data also reveals that the UK visitors spent more than 45 minutes on these sites each over the month. Pornographic sites make up 41.2% of all the sites visited in the UK with a significant audience. Students (23.2%), manual workers (15%), and professionals (12.8%) are the largest groups of UK visitors to pornographic sites.

However, looking at all European audiences, the figures show that Germany has the largest audience for online pornography. More than 5.3 million Germans visited an adult site in June. They also spent more time on these types of sites than any other nationality. The research estimates that each German visitor spent almost an hour on pornographic sites in June.

NetValue data also showed that more than half (52.3%) the websites visited in June by a significant number of German users were of an adult nature. Spain has the greatest proportion of visitors to pornographic sites - 40% of Spanish home Internet users visiting a pornography site in June.

'Pornography has become a lucrative online business, with many companies now recognising it as a valuable additional revenue stream,' NetValue's Alki Manias has said. 'And this would seem to be a stable business area - the popularity of online pornography continues unchecked.'
Pornographic sites are also popular amongst the earliest adopters of the Internet. People who first got online at home before 1997 are now thought to account for 18.5% of visitors to pornographic sites. However, this group only represents 14.1% of the whole UK online population. In the UK, lastminute.com has just introduced an auction for adult toys and aids, whilst in Germany, Freenet.de and T-Online are also moving into the adult business.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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