In the race toward Internet adoption, Japan was the clear leader in 2004, with more than eight out of ten households using the Internet. Meanwhile, just when pundits set a cap on what might be considered an online saturation in the U.S., the largest online population market broke through a two-year plateau with a year-over year online population increase of 27%, according to Ipsos-Insight's current The Face of the Web study.
In line with Ipsos-Insight's projection, growth in Internet usage in 2004 was primarily driven by Japan and the U.S. among the twelve markets measured. The United States, nevertheless, still accounts for the largest Internet market with 162 million users, or 42% of the Internet population in measured markets. Japan follows, with close to seventy million users. Much of the remainder of the growth was contributed by France and urban markets of China and Russia, with the latter two, while still consisting only of close to ten million online users each, demonstrating the strongest - each with over 50 percent -- year over year online population growth.
According to Brian Cruikshank of Ipsos-Insight, "the continued growth in the Leading Edge markets provides a glimpse into the future of what is yet to come for other markets around the world, potentially at a much accelerated pace. Considering it's only been five years since the financial markets' enthusiasm for the Internet waned, and ten years since broad adoption of the Internet, Internet growth continues to expand in developed markets and reach critical mass in many markets in Europe and Asia. There's much more to come."
"Internet growth, however, is not restricted to wired networks alone. Our current wave of findings show that a multitude of wireless data applications are changing the Internet landscape as we know it," concluded Cruikshank.
Ipsos provides survey-based advertising research, marketing research, public opinion research, media research, and customer satisfaction research.