Half A Billion Eyeballs.

Nielsen//NetRatings, a leading Internet audience measurement service, released its Fourth Quarter 2001 Global Internet Trends report on Internet access and penetration, finding a total of 498 million people now have Internet access from home. The results show that 24 million people gained Internet access at-home during Q4 as compared to Q3. The rate of growth of the global Internet population this past quarter was nearly double Q3’s growth of 15 million people.

“Internet penetration and usage continues to grow across households and individuals,” said Richard Goosey, chief of measurement science and analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. “In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Germany continues to dominate in terms of absolute numbers of households and people with Internet access, recording the largest increase in the number of people and households gaining Internet access. In Latin America, Brazil is the dominant Internet market, while in Asia Pacific, South Korea continues to hold its top ranking, though Singapore experienced strong growth in Q4.”

The Q4 reports also identified demographic characteristics of global Internet populations. “In Europe and Latin America, household access to the Internet is skewed toward homes where the head of household is age 35 or younger,” Goosey said. “In Europe, Internet access is also most common in homes that are headed by men with university degrees. The same is true in Asia Pacific, where homes headed by men with university degrees are also most likely to have Internet access, though age is not a determining factor in that region.”

Goosey also noted that one in three households with telephones in EMEA have Internet access via home PC, compared with over half of households in the US. The biggest proportional increases in Internet access over Q3 occurred in Finland, Germany and Switzerland. In South Africa, 17% of homes with telephones also have Internet access, though only 6% of all homes in that country have Internet access.

India is the only country in Asia Pacific with single-digit home access rates, with just one in 14 households with telephones having Internet access via home PC. On the other end of the spectrum, Singapore exhibited a 6% gain over Q3 and now has the highest penetration level of any country in Asia Pacific.

“Just as significant as the penetration rate is the connection rate – the percentage of homes with PCs that have access to the Internet,” Goosey said. “Since Q3, there has been a two point increase in the percentage of EMEA households that use their home PCs to connect to the Internet. Though Sweden leads the region with 87% connection rate, Italy, Finland, Germany and Switzerland saw increases of 6%, 5% and 4% respectively in Q4.

“Eighty percent of homes in Asia Pacific – except for India – use their home PCs to connect to the Internet. Hong Kong leads the region but Singapore again made a significant (4%) gain in Q4 and is now closing in on Hong Kong. “In Latin America, Brazilians are most likely to us e their home PC to access the Internet, with three in four doing so. Mexicans have shown a solid 8% increase in households using their PC to connect to the Internet, and now more than half the home PCs in Mexico are used to connect to the Internet.

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