Recent Worldwide Internet Use Statistics Two excellent reports were released over the past week, highlighting growth and trends in the worldwide Internet adoption and growth market, Europe in particular. The first report, from E-consultancy is called the Internet Statistics Compendium and a small free version of the report is available for download with some great information:
  • The NOP study of UK internet users revealed that 71% of respondents were aware of cookies. [Gomez, 2004]
    • 82% knew how to delete cookies.
    • 55% of them were deleting them on a monthly basis.
  • Screen resolutions are heading towards 1024x768 as the standard.
    • 1024x768 - 51% in Oct. of 2004
    • 800x600 - 34%
    • Higher than 1024x768 - 10%
    • Lower than 800x600 - 1%
  • 93.2% of B2B consumers indicated they would use the net to research the purchase before buying. [Enquiro 2004]
    • Of those using net research, only 4.46% would not use a search engine.
    • Search was the ‘first resource’ for research for 63.9% of respondents, beating manufacturer sites and portals.
      • 82.9% used Google.
The second report of interest comes from a CRM Today report on growth in the European Search Marketing segement. That report cites a Forrester Research study that shows considerable growth trends for EU search marketing, particularly in Sweden & Norway, as well as Germany & the UK. They predict that search advertising spending in the EU will reach €3 Billion by 2010.