• by Masha Geller , December 7, 2001

In the last few days at the @d:Tech show in New York, most of the presenters touched on the fact that the web's penetration continues to grow. No one really backed up that statement with any quantifiable proof, so I thought I'd find some for you.

As luck would have it, Nielsen//NetRatings has just released its Third Quarter 2001 Global Internet Trends report on Internet access and penetration, finding a total of 474 million people now have Internet access from home.

The Q3 results show an increase over Q2 of 14.8 million people with home-based Internet access.

"For the first time, over half the people in six of the seven Asia Pacific markets measured by Nielsen//NetRatings have Internet access from home," said Richard Goosey, chief of measurement science and analytics at Nielsen//NetRatings.

The exception, he said, is India, where only one household in 250 has home web access. In both Europe and Asia Pacific, there is continued growth in the rate of Internet penetration, but the growth rate has steadied this quarter over last quarter.

Goosey also pointed out that online purchasing is on a global upswing. "One of the clearest markers that an Internet market is maturing is the widespread adoption of buying online," he said.

According to the data, more than 10% of Europeans have bought online, representing an increase of 4.2% over early 2000, and over half the online browsers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the past six months made a purchase.

The Nordics, with their longer experience in Internet access and usage, are more likely to browse and to buy online than other Europeans, with Italians and Spanish the least likely to convert browsing to buying and Germans the most likely.