Asia Pacific Region Boasts Biggest Internet Audience

A recent report titled “Digital World: State of the Internet” released by comScore shows that the U.S. can only boast about 21% of the worldwide Internet audience, which is a dramatic drop from the 66% share it had in 1996. This points to the significant growth in emerging international online markets, particularly in the Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East – Africa regions.

The Asia Pacific region had more than 308 million Internet users in January 2008, which reflected a 13.9% increase from the 271 million users in January 2007.

Europe had almost 233 million Internet users in January, a 6.8% increase from the year before. North America had nearly 184 million Internet users in January, a 5.7% increase from the prior year.

Latin America had 59 million Internet users in January, which was a 16.6% increase from the year before, while Middle East – Africa had a shade fewer than 40 million Internet users, a 20.2% increase from January 2007.

Internet users were defined as those at least15 years of age using the Internet from home and work location. In total there were 824 million Internet users worldwide in January 2008.

Google was found to be the most dominant search engine worldwide, while Yahoo! was second and China-based Baidu was third. Google was not as influential in countries that used different alphabets, including those that relied upon Chinese, Korean, and Russian.

Approximately two out of every three Internet user (530 million) visits social networks. MySpace and Facebook are battling for the leadership position.

As expected, online video was the most popular form of online entertainment, spearheaded by YouTube.

Source:
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2115