Europe Net Users Now Outnumber US/Canada

palefish writes "From this article in the Media Guardian: According to Irish-based industry monitor Nua.com, Europe has almost 186 million users, while Canada and the US register 182 million. The difference may not seem substantial, but Europe is still a growing market. I've always thought of Europe as lagging somewhat behind the States in the internet uptake stakes (probably because some of our telecoms companies are yet to understand the internet). So, I don't know about you lot, but this statistic came as a bit of a surprise to me."

Comments

Percentages would be a more accurate view

[phasm42]

The number of internet users in Europe may outnumber those in North America, but the total population also outnumbers North America by over 2 to 1. A quick Google, and I came up with 314 million for NA, and 727 million for Europe. Put in this persepective, NA still has over twice as many people online, but also leaves Europe with a lot of room to grow (and hence probably faster uptake in the future).

Europe isn't as homogenous as the US

[Ato]

Something to bear in mind is that Europe is far less homogenous than the US when it comes to adoption of new tech (and a great many other things as well, I might add). Generally speaking, northern Europe has been on par with the US in internet use since years back, whereas southern Europe is just picking up speed.

This, and the mere fact that the population base of Europe is larger than that of the US means that with time, as the market saturates, Europeans will certainly outnumber Americans (from the US anyway) on the net.

Major improvements in UK telcos internet offerings

[wfmcwalter]

I've recently returned to the UK after spending several years in Silicon Valley. When I left, dialup was metered and broadband unheard of. On returning, I've been pleasantly surprised by the offerings the UK telcos now have for internet access. Unmetered access is common, and at a price & quality equal to that I enjoyed in the US. Options (and prices) for broadband are considerably better than I enjoyed in Silicon Valley. I think the UK telcos (especially BT) finally get the internet.

<grumble>Okay, I lived 1/4 mile from El Camino in Mountain View, and stupid PacBell said I couldn't get DSL (toooo faaaar). If you can't rely on broadband in the densest area of the world's technology capital - where can you?</grumble>

not understanding the internet?

[balloonhead]

I don't understand the poster's point about European ISP not understanding the internet. We have BT, and they freakin' invented hyperlinks.

All your internet are belong to us now

Net usage per capita still higher in US

[Yet Another Smith]

Since Europe is still larger than the Gringo-land by a fair amount, a somewhat smaller per-capita net usage stat will put the total number of users ahead of the US. Its still only in small countries with a concerted effort to push the internet that net usage per-capita tops the US. And that may only be in broadband - I don't remember off the top of my head.

The US, between immigration and a rebounding birth-rate, will outstrip the population of Europe before 2050, if current trends hold. But net usage should be around 99% by then throughout the developed world.

Re:Don't believe everything you read...

[a2800276]

You probably have a US-based webpage, which would account for the number of hits coming from the US. If that's the instrument I would use to measure net population, I'd have to assume that Internet users are composed of nearly 100% Germans, cause the hits on my German site are nearly all from Germany.

Re:Don't believe everything you read...

[Rob.Mathers]

While your webstats might be originating mostly from the US, that is hardly representative of the population of the web. Perhaps your site doesn't have anything of interest to Europeans.
Think about your web activity, I suspect that you mostly visit US- or North America-centric sites. Wouldn't the logical conclusion therefore be that most Europeans mostly visit European-centric sites?

Re:Don't believe everything you read...

[Draoi]

There may be a significant difference between 'users on-line' and the amount of surfing individuals. Thanks to our punitive telco here in Ireland, I'm severly limited as to my on-line time as our dialup charges are metered per-minute. *And* we've yet to get decent broadband! There may be more users on-line per-capita (I doubt that, too) but they're not on-line as long & thus not hitting as many URLs. Long-winded, but do you see my point?

In other news...

[MattC413]

Local American retailers have published a new study, saying that the reason that the economy isn't doing as well as it should be is because there are more people OUTSIDE this country than inside.

A spokesman for the industry has been quoted as saying that it is time for Americans to do their duty, and have lots and lots of sex, especially with an overlooked segment of the sexual economy - geeks.

A spokesman for Slashdot, when presented with this news, was heard to exclaim "Whoa.. sweet!"

Asia-pacific to beat Europe and US on numbers

[Draoi]

Also from Nua;

Asia-Pacific will have more Internet users than either Europe or North America by the end of 2002, according to a new forecast from eMarketer.

The study indicates that there will be more than 180 million Internet users in Asia-Pacific by the end of the year, compared with 175.7 million users in Europe and 167.7 million in North America.

More info here

Comment from a european

[icebear.dk]

Well I don't know if this is true or not, but it sure seems pretty saturated in Scandinavia, where I live. I live in a town with 35K citizens and we have had DSL and Cable broadband available since early 2000. Everywhere I go (except most of the old folks read over 60) I find at least one PC and they are nearly always if not always on the internet. It is also getting into everything now. My homework and stuff from the university (I recently returned there to finish up my CS degree) I can get over FTP, all contact with the teachers and faculty in general is strongly encouraged to run over email. Our enrollment includes an university email address, our enrollment list has not only email but ICQ on it. And this goes for all faculties not just the CS and Engineering ones. There is a lot more (e-learning portal, webmail, information and so on) and they are constantly expanding (currently they are working on getting a complete wireless coverage, while they build the new university down by the sea). The student housings for the entire town offer 100 Mbit internal LAN and a mighty big pipe out (I don't know how big, but it is a leased part of a fiber) with all the student housings organized by the independent student housing organization (the school has no say over what goes on).

So the internet has spread fully around here and again this is just a very small town in Denmark :)

Re:The US is not ahead in technology

[Lemmy Caution]

Keep the statistics of US wealth in perspective: if you removed the wealthiest half of a percent from the picture, the US population would have about the same income and standard of living as much of Europe and Japan (and you can remove the top half of one percent from Europe and Japan and maintain that parity - the super-rich in the US are simply far super-richer than the super-rich elsewhere, and that distorts the picture of American wealth.)

So, theoretically, each of those super-wealthy types could buy higher tech gadgets than the rest, but in terms of consumer electronics, the hyperluxury set really don't set the pace for economies of scale.

You also may have a lower gross income than the typical American, but your discretionary spending money is probably comparable. The rest of your comment largely holds - that it's a matter of spending priorities.