Australia

There were 17,033,826 internet users in Australia (representing 80.1% of the population) in December 2009, according to Internet World Stats. This was up by 158.1% since 2000. (Internet World Stats, April 2010)

There were 9.1 million active internet subscribers in Australia at the end of December 2009 (comprising 1,653,000 business and government subscribers and 7,459,000 household subscribers), according to findings of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Internet Activity Survey in December 2009.

The phasing out of dial-up internet connections continued with nearly 90% of internet connections now being non dial-up. Australians also continued to access higher download speeds, with 62% of access connections having a download speed of 1.5Mbps or greater.

Digital subscriber line (DSL) continued to be the major technology for connections, accounting for 51% of non dial-up connections. However, this percentage share has decreased since June 2009 when DSL represented 57% of non dial-up connections.

Mobile wireless via a datacard, dongle or USB modem was the fastest growing technology in internet connections, increasing to 2.8 million in December 2009. This represents a 40% increase from June 2009.

The Internet Activity Survey (IAS) collects details on aspects of internet access services provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Australia. This release contains results from all ISPs operating in Australia as at 31 December 2009. (Australian Bureau of Statistics, March 2010)

Digital Media

The number of hours Australians spend consuming media also continued to climb in 2008, reaching 89.2 hours per week compared to 84.4 hours in 2007 and just 71.4 hours in 2006, according to Nielsen Online. New technology was the main driver of the increased consumption, with the amount of time spent online up from 13.7 hours in 2007 to 16.1 hours in 2008, while PC Video (video either downloaded or viewed on a computer) usage jumped from 2.5 hours to 4.6 hours, and video games usage was up from 4.6 hours to 5.4 hours.

This increase in consumption has lead to an increase in the amount of media multi-tasking undertaken by Australians - over three in five internet users (61%) watch television while online and half (50%) use the internet while listening to the radio. Of those consumers who report multi-tasking, the internet is most commonly cited as the primary focus. (Nielsen Online, March 2009)

Searches Engines and Searches

Experian Hitwise revealed the top search engines in Australia for the 4 weeks ending May 22 2010, ranked by volume of searches.

Top search engines in Australia for the 4 weeks ending May 22 2010 by volume of searches:
1. www.google.com.au: 87.47%
2. www.google.com: 5.10%
3. www.bing.com: 3.40%
4. au.search.yahoo.com: 2.27%
5. www.ask.com: 0.35%
(Experian Hitwise, May 2010)

There has been a global trend in the lengthening of search terms in Australia, according to findings presented by Alan Long, Hitwise Research Director about how the Australian Internet user's interactions with Search Engines are changing.

The findings show a year-on-year decrease in one word search terms of 2.3% and two word search terms of 1.9%. In contrast search requests longer than three words have increased over the past 12 months by 2.8%, returning to the levels of 2006 and 2007. Four word searches have increased 1.2% and 5-words plus searches have seen a solid increase over the past two years, with a 1.2% increase in the past 12 months.

Search term length trends all search engines, Australia for the week ending 14 November 2009:
- 1 word: 18.6% (-2.3% in the past year)
- 2 words: 28.6% (-1.9%)
- 3 words: 24.2% (+2.8%)
- 4 words: 14.3% (+1.2%)
- 5+ words: 14.3% (+1.2%)
(Hitwise Australia Newsletter - December 2009, December 2009)

There were 11,514,606 active home internet users in Australia in June 2009, according to Nielsen Online. This was up by 2.47% compared to the previous month. (ClickZ, August 2009)