Canada is number one in time spent online – or at least that’s what the numbers say for the month of April, according to Media Metrix Canada’s report on Internet use. Canadians spent an average of 932 minutes online, and Canada has more than 13 million connected users to the Internet.
“Our page views for last year ending in December were up 54 per cent from the previous year,” said Patrick Sullivan, president of toronto.com. He said while the overall numbers are slowing because of the number of Canadians who are already connected, PC sales are rising, as households now have more than one PC per household. The numbers suggest the same trend, as the growth rate from May of 2000 to April of 2001 was 14 per cent for people online, and average minutes spent has increased by 82 per cent.
With respect to overall numbers, the U.S. leads for Internet use, followed by Japan, UK and Canada, said Lisa Eaton, vice-president of Media Metrix in Toronto. But in light of our population, Eaton said Canada’s online use is even more impressive. “The U.S. is a more mature market because people have been online longer,” she added.
However, one of the factors of total Internet use remains who is using broadband – countries are continuing to use dial-up networks most often, making both speed and cost a factor.
“If you look at hard cost of retail DSL or cable access in Canada, the U.S. and Germany, using a standard currency instead of cost in U.S. dollars, Canada provides cheaper high speed access,” said Larry Karnis, senior consultant for Application Enhancements in Brampton, Ont. He added that those who have slower Internet access lose interest because of the time it takes to connect to the Internet.
In total, 14 countries are involved in the monitoring of their respective country Internet use. Eaton said individuals who participate in the studies have a software metre installed on their PCs at home, and are then required to go to a Web site where they log on and log off to measure their time spent online. In Canada, 6,000 people are being monitored, compared to 55,000 in the U.S.