Tech Shout!

Today, comScore Networks, a leader in measuring the magnitude of the digital age, announced that around 747 million people, who are aged 15 and above, used the Internet worldwide in January 2007 itself. This shows a 10% increase when compared with the figures of January 2006.

Among the top 15 countries, Internet audiences in India, the Russian Federation and China increased the most in 2006, growing 33, 21 and 20 per cent respectively.

India’s Internet population grew 33 Per Cent, which was the fastest increase in Internet population in the world.

As of now, China represents the second-largest Internet population in the world with 86.8 million users, after the U.S, which rose 2% year-over-year to 153.4 million users aged 15 and above in January 2007.

According to Bob Ivins, managing director, comScore Europe, “The importance of the worldwide Internet population continues to grow. Internet users outside the U.S. now account for 80% of the world’s online population, with rapidly developing countries experiencing double-digit growth rates year-over-year.”

When it comes to Online Engagement, Canada, Israel and South Korea lead the world. As a measure of engagement, comScore also analyzed the top 10 countries ranked by average online per visitor for January 2007. Canada led the list, with the average user spending 39.6 hours online during a month.

An obvious point that can be noticed in each of the top 10 countries is that the time spent online by users with a broadband connection was greater than the time spent online by users with a narrowband connection.

“We have all believed that ‘always-on broadband connections stimulate usage- this study empirically confirms that conclusion,” Ivins commented.