India, Russia, and China show annual Internet growth

7 Mar 2007

Some 747 million people, age 15 or older, used the Internet in January this year, up 10% compared to the same period a year ago, according to Internet metrics company comScore Networks.

Internet users outside the U.S. now make up 80% of the world's online population.

Among the top 15 countries for Internet penetration, India, the Russian Federation and China showed the fastest annual growth, at 33%, 21% and 20% respectively. China now has 86.8 million Internet users, the second highest number behind the U.S. at 153.4 million. Internet use in the use in the U.S. grew only by 2% year-over-year.

comScore measured the number of hours spent online per visitor during January and found that higher broadband penetration correlated with higher Internet use. Canadian Internet users spent the most time online, averaging 39.6 hours per month. Internet users in Israel, South Korea, and the United States spent an average of 37.4, 34, and 31.6 hours online per month respectively.

The top three Internet properties worldwide in January were Microsoft sites, Google sites, and Yahoo sites, in that order.

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