| Total Online Population (000's) in 2011: | 51,442 |
| Percentage of Population Online in 2011: | 82.0% |
Demographics
There were 51,442,100 internet users in the UK (representing 82.0% of the population) in June 2011, according to Internet World Stats. (Internet world Stats, August 2011)
There were 41.26 million adults who had used the internet by the second quarter of 2011 representing 82.3% of the adult population, according to the ONS Internet Access Quarterly Update 2011 Q2.
8.73 million adults had never used the internet in the UK by the second quarter of 2011. This represented 17.4% of the adult population. This was a decrease of 12,000 adults since quarter one, a change which is not statistically significant.
These estimates are derived from data collected by the Labour Force Survey. This is the first time that ONS has provided estimates of the quarterly change in the numbers of Internet users and non-users and these estimates are experimental. It is important to note that this is only the second quarter for which figures are available and that these figures are not seasonally adjusted. (Office for National Statistics, August 2011)
11% of UK citizens have never used the internet, despite its prominence in the business and consumer worlds, according to research from the European Commission. The figure is down from 29% in 2006, but still underlines the scale of the work facing organisations like Race Online 2012 to get more of the UK population connected.
The proportion of households online increased from 63% in 2006 to 85% in 2011. However, 17% of these homes are still using basic dial-up internet services rather than broadband connections, suggesting that superfast, always-on services have not become a "must-have" for all UK citizens.
Eurostat also revealed that the number of UK firms using mobile internet connections rose sharply in 2011 as the need for constant connectivity became paramount. (ClickZ, December 2011)
Of Europe's 372 million unique visitors, the United Kingdom accounted for 37.3 million unique visitors during August 2011, according to comScore. The United Kingdom showed the highest engagement with users spending an average of nearly 35 hours online in the past month (up 1.5 hours from the previous month), consuming 3,205 pages online. (comScore, October 2011)
Around three quarters (73%) of UK adults used the internet in 2009, up from two-thirds (63%) in 2007, according to Ofcom's Media Literacy reports, which reveal the UK's media consumption habits and attitudes.
Adults in Scotland are the biggest home users of the internet (10.6 hours per week), with adults in England logging on from home 8.3 hours per week , those in Wales 6.8 hours per week and adults in Northern Ireland using the internet at home the least at 6.5 hours per week. (Ofcom, May 2010)
The proportion of the British population with access to the internet has grown from 73.92% in December 2009 to 75.99% in March 2010, according to an IMRG report prepared by the British Population Survey (BPS). (IMRG, April 2010)
43.7 million people will use the internet in the UK by 2013, according to eMarketer. This would be up from 39.4 million in 2009.
Internet users in the UK 2008-2013:
- 2008: 38.1 million
- 2009: 39.4 million
- 2010: 40.6 million
- 2011: 41.7 million
- 2012: 42.8 million
- 2013: 43.7 million
(eMarketer, May 2009)
Age
The majority of UK adults in all age groups, apart from the group of adults aged 75 or more, had used the internet in the second quarter of 2011, according to the ONS Internet Access Quarterly Update 2011 Q2 derived from data collected by the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The largest proportion of internet users was in the 16 to 24 age group, at 98.8%. This represented 7.19 million people. Only 64,000 adults in this youngest age group had never used the Internet. (Office for National Statistics, August 2011)
Digital Media
86% of the UK internet population visit a video site at least once a month. In September 2011 there were 785 million visits to video sites from the UK, while the average internet user makes 18 visits to video websites a month, according to an Experian Hitwise white paper "Online video: bringing social media to life". UK internet users spend 240 million hours every month watching online video content. (Experian Hitwise, October 2011)
UK internet users spend 240 million hours every month watching online video content, according to Experian Hitwise. In September 2011, the UK internet population made over 785 million visits to online video websites, an increase of 36% year-on-year.
The majority of growth in this space has been driven by YouTube, now the third most popular website in the UK after Google UK and Facebook. YouTube dominates with 70% of all visits to online video sites. Every month, UK internet users spend 184 million hours watching YouTube content, with an average session time of 20 minutes.
Ranking second and third are the video-on-demand (VOD) services from BBC iPlayer and ITV Player, which now represent a significant percentage of overall internet visits to video sites. Niche sites have also seen a huge increase in traffic, including videozer (+853%), MSN Video (+913%) and Hulu (+123%). (eyefortravel, October 2011)
Video ads reached a greater proportion of internet users in the UK during November 2010 than in the US, according to comScore. Over 66% of UK users were exposed to at least one video ad over the course of the month compared with 48% of users in the US.
Video ad network SpotXchange enjoyed the greatest reach among U.K. users, followed by Google sites and Adconion's Joost network. As in the U.S., Google sites streamed by far the most video content over the course of the month, thanks largely to the popularity of YouTube. (ClickZ, January 2011)
Search Engines and Searches
Microsoft's search engine Bing was the fastest growing search engine during March 2011, according to Experian Hitwise's UK Search Engine and Social Analysis report in the UK. Google is still very much the dominant player in UK search, with Google Sites accounting for over 90% of all searches conducted by UK internet users. However, between February and March 2011, Google Sites lost 0.66% market share of searches, whilst Microsoft Sites increased their market share of searches by 0.28%.
Most popular search engines by share of UK searches, March 2011:
1. Google Sites: 90.02% (-0.66% compared to February 2011)
2. Microsoft Sites: 4.39% (+0.28%)
3. Yahoo! Sites: 3.53% (+0.21%)
4. Ask Sites: 1.49% (+0.06%)
5. Other: 0.56% (+0.12%)
The growth of Microsoft sites, led by Bing, is more pronounced in the year-on-year figures. Between March 2010 and March 2011 Bing was the only search engine to increase its volume of searches from UK internet users. Whilst Google, Yahoo!, Ask and other search providers all dipped in year-on-year change, Microsoft Sites improved their market share of searches by 1.43%.(Experian Hitwise, April 2011)
Last Updated on Wednesday, 01 February 2012 14:35
