Analysis of Population and Internet Usage Statistics: 2009

Internet has revolutionized the businesses, economies and societies all over the globe. It is constantly unleashing new business models, creating new products and services, changing the way consumers shop and businesses sell their products. The increasing number of Internet users every year indicates increased awareness of Internet’s benefits for the people across the world.

North America still dominating with highest penetration rate
North America is dominating the world regions with highest internet penetration rate, which is more than 75 percent. The total number of internet users in North America are more than 259 millions with 76.2 percent penetration rate. Countries like United States and Canada which belong to this geographic location have internet penetration rate at around 75 percent. After North America, Australia and Europe were holding second and third positions with 60.8 percent and 53 percent of penetration rate respectively.

When it comes to highest number of internet users worldwide, Asia stands at the top. More than 42 percentage of the total internet users are from Asia. But the internet penetration rate in Asia is low around 20 percent. It’s poor penetration rate may be due to the most populous countries like China (internet penetration rate-26 percent) and India (internet penetration rate-7 percent) which belong to this geographic location.

Top 20 internet user countries holding more than 76 percentage
Top 20 countries with highest number of internet users add up to 76.4 percent of the total users. China tops the list with 360 million users and United States stood at the second position with 227 million users. But when we compare penetration rates between these two countries, United States has more percentage than China. United States has more than 74 percent of penetration rate whereas china has only 26.9 percent penetration rate. This implies that US is still dominating the internet world. Japan, India, Brazil, Germany, UK, Russia, France and Korea South follow after China and US in the top 20 countries with highest number of internet users.

In terms of internet users from different continents, Asia has 3 countries in top 5 and 5 countries in top 10. China, Japan and India existed in top 5 whereas, Russia and Korea South were in next 5. But when it comes to internet users penetration rate, Europe is dominating other regions. 3 Out of top 5 countries and 6 out of top 10 countries are from Europe. Those are Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark and Finland.

Overall statistics show that there is a significant improvement in world wide internet users compared to last year. Penetration rate of internet users improved from 23.5 percentage to 26.6 percent. Though more than one out of every four persons is using the internet today, there is still a huge chance for improvement.

The statistics mentioned above clearly establish that internet is going mainstream not only North America, Europe and Asia but everywhere.

Analysis of Population and Internet Usage Statistics: 2009