Email the World Over

Sending and receiving e-mail was the dominant online activity in 12 countries over the past six months, with Australians leading the way, according to the Nielsen//NetRatings First Quarter 2002 Global Internet Trends report.

'Of all the popular Internet applications, e-mail is the global activity of choice,' said Mark Henning, director of sales and marketing, Nielsen//NetRatings Australia. 'We found an impressive 90% of adults in three major markets - Australia, the UK and the Netherlands - used e-mail over the past six months, though the percentages were high for all 12 countries. Email is popular because it's a cost-effective way to communicate across great distances - clearly a key driver of its extensive use in Australia. It also doesn't require the same high connection speeds as some of the other applications.'

Henning added, 'Interestingly, looking at audio-visual content and using Internet radio, Australia was second behind the UK in terms of consumption of audio visual content, with 40% of people 16+ viewing/listening in the past six months, and that's in spite of Australia's low penetration of broadband.'

Globally, the number of people with access to the Internet via a home PC increased from 498.2 million people in Q4 2001 to 531.3 million in Q1 2002. North America is the biggest region, contributing 34% of the total global Internet population, followed by Europe and the Middle East at 27%, Asia & the Pacific at 21%, and Latin America at 2%.

In Australia, 57% of people over the age of two now have access to the Internet from a home PC, equating to 10.6 million people. Moreover, 73% of Australians over the age of 16 now have access to the Internet from any location, such as home PC, work PC, school or university, Internet cafes.

'Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Australia appear to be more mature Internet markets,' Henning said. 'Of the countries covered in the report, these five are the clear leaders in terms of the percentage of people with access to the Internet (each has more than 55%), the percentage that own/lease a home PC (all 60%+), and high Internet connection rates (all 80%+) for those who have a PC in their home'

Additionally, Australia ranks fourth behind Sweden, the UK and Denmark in terms of the percentage of people who had purchased online in the past 6 months (17%).

The findings are from the Nielsen//NetRatings Global Internet Trends service, a quarterly subscription service reporting information on worldwide Internet access and usage trends drawn from surveys conducted in January 2002 using consistent research methodology. With the Q1 2002 reports, Nielsen//NetRatings has expanded the range of topics covered in the survey, now reporting on the top Internet Service Providers by country, speed of connection to the Internet and online activities such as email, chat, instant messaging and online radio usage.

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

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