The total Internet audience worldwide has surpassed one billion visitors in December 2008 and China leads online with the highest number of Web surfers, according to digital research firm comScore. The Asia-Pacific region represented 41% of global Internet users, followed by Europe (28%), North America (18%), Latin America (7%) and the Middle East and Africa (5%).
The figures are likely to be much higher, especially for those in emerging markets unable to afford a PC, as comScore did not take into account traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones/PDAs.
Total Worldwide Internet Audience: Regional Breakdown
Ranked by Total Unique Visitors (000)* December 2008
Age 15+, Home & Work Locations, Source: comScore World Metrix
| Region | Total Unique Visitors (000) |
Share of Total Internet Audience (%) |
| Worldwide | 1,007,730 | 100.0% |
| Asia Pacific | 416,281 | 41.3% |
| Europe |
282,651
|
28.0% |
| North America | 185,109 | 18.4% |
| Latin America | 74,906 | 7.4% |
| ME & Africa | 48,783 | 4.8% |
* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
China had the world’s largest population of Internet users with nearly 180 million people going online in December, followed by the United States with 163 million, Japan with 60 million, Germany and Britain with nearly 37 million each and France with 34 million.
India was next with 32 million Internet users followed by Russia (29 million), Brazil (28 million), South Korea (27 million), Canada (22 million) and Italy (21 million).
China’s most popular instant messaging (QQ) provider Tencent Inc. and Chinese search engine Baidu were ranked 13th and 14th respectively on comScore’s Top 15 worldwide Internet Properties (ranked by unique visitors in December).
Active users of QQ hit 350 million last year and Tencent also offers a range of Internet and wireless products which include gaming, mobile blogging, C2C auction site Paipai and its social networking site ‘QQ Xiaoyou’ was officially launched just recently.
Not surprisingly, Google Sites was the most popular Internet property in the world while Facebook is the top social networking site worldwide and ranked as the 7th most popular website.
