• by November 6, 2000

Media Metrix has announced the Top 50 multi-country Internet audience measurement results for August 2000, revealing overall Internet usage and top websites for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. combined at home.

While Media Metrix' multi-country top 50 digital media and Web property rankings continue to be dominated by large global brands such as Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo!, the inclusion of Japan in the company's multi-country report adds a significant number of Japanese name brands to the rankings.

Japan represents 12% of the total online population among all countries in Media Metrix' August 2000 at-home multi-country report, the second largest Internet-using market after the U.S.

Microsoft claims the number-one spot among at-home Internet users for the first time since Media Metrix began reporting multi-country measures in March 2000. Drawing 54.8% of its total unique visitors from the U.S., Microsoft taps a higher percentage of its traffic from online audiences abroad relative to other leading brands.

Of the six local country brands within the August multi-country top 50, five are from Japan, including Nifty Sites, Biglobe Sites, DTI.ne.jp, So-net.ne.jp, Hi-Ho.ne.jp and MBN.or.jp, which are all owned by major traditional companies; and the sixth is Germany's T-Online Sites.

At-home Internet users in Japan went online an average of 13.9 days in the month of August, the most of any country, and outpaced the multi-country average of 12.1 days overall.

Internet users in the United States spent the most time online in August, with an average of 15.0 hours, outpacing the multi-country average of 12.2 hours per month at home.