• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 19, 2009

While their ranks continue to grow, the share of Hispanic adults online--54%--still trails the total share of U.S. adults--69%--now surfing the Web, according to a report released Thursday by Scarborough Research.

Thanks to strong broadband adoption rates, however, Hispanic Web users now constitute "avid downloaders of digital content," according to Scarborough--a joint venture between Arbitron and The Nielsen Co.

Indeed, among Hispanics who are online, 68% have a broadband connection in their household, which compares favorably to the 71% of total U.S. Internet users.

About 42% of Hispanic Internet users reported downloading some sort of digital content over the past 30 days--compared to 35% of Internet users in general.

In line with general trends, Hispanic Internet users are most likely to download music--as 32% reported having done so in the previous 30 days, compared to 24% of all Web users.

Also, 17% of online Hispanics reported downloading "other video" over the past 30 days--compared to 14% of all Web users.

Meanwhile, 11% of Hispanics reported recently downloading audio clips, 9% downloaded movies, 8% downloaded TV programs, 6% downloaded video games, and 3% downloaded podcasts.

Younger Hispanic adults were more likely to have downloaded digital content in the previous 30 days, with 51% of the 18- to-34-year-olds reporting such activity.

In the area of ecommerce, Hispanic Web users lag, as 62% of online Hispanic adults reported having made at least one online purchase over the past year, compared to 70% of all Web users.

Among those who did make a purchase, the average Hispanic spent an average of $762 compared to the $861 spent by the average U.S. Web user.

In addition, among Hispanic cell-phone subscribers, 55% use it for text messaging, 28% for picture messaging, 22% for instant messaging, 15% for downloading video games, 15% for e-mail, and 11% for "other" uses.