New findings on global internet use show that Denmark leads the
rest of the world in having 54% of households connected to the web,
that men use the web more than women and that their favourite
topics are sport, cars and porn. Asia leads the way for on-line
games, chat, Instant Messaging and audio-video.
The report from internet measurement company NetValue shows that
behind Denmark, the US is second, with 50.9% of households
connected. Asia takes the next three positions, with Singapore,
Taiwan and Korea having, respectively, 47.4%, 40.0% and 37.3% of
their households connected. The UK follows in 6th place with a
score of 34.4%, trailed by Germany with 30.4%. Hong Kong scores
26.2%. Internet use was studied in only twelve countries.
Men worldwide use the Internet more than women. This is
particularly evident in Mexico, Spain and the UK where male
internet users almost double the percentage of females.
The report also finds that in Korea, usage of on-line games is
more than four times higher than the next highest contender and
audio-video used almost twice as much as all other markets.
Yahoo! and Microsoft’s MSN hold top spots virtually everywhere
in the world. In every market except for China and Germany,
yahoo.com, msn.com or Yahoo!’s localized sites (such as Singapore’s
yahoo.com.sg) dominate the list of top three overall ranked
domains. Almost all of the world’s top sites are portals.
Gender preferences are consistent with stereotypes.
Fashion/beauty, women sites, e-cards and astrology all show up as
top sectors for women around the world. The male list rates cars,
sports and porn as top sectors (although not in the UK or Hong
Kong, where community and arts sites respectively are more
popular).
The report was based on results collected in January this year
by browser monitoring software downloaded by volunteer web
users.
