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Technology User Profile® Request for Information Reference
| June 1, 1999 U.S. Internet Penetration – Growing by Leaps and Bounds The Internet had another outstanding year last year. Homes with personal computers and Internet connections once again set records. According to our recently released Technology User Profile, as of January 1999, 56% of all U.S. PCs (work, self-employed and home) regularly accessed the Internet. And for PC households alone, 60% were on the Net. Those are big numbers: 67.5 million PCs and 31.3 million households in the U.S. use the Internet regularly. The study is based on over 11,000 PC users in the home, self-employed and workplace market segments.
Source: Technology User Profile This is impressive stuff. The Internet added eight million new U.S. Internet households (35% year-over-year growth) to its audience, or 22.8 million new U.S. Internet PCs (51% growth) in 1998 – something like adding the entire population of Sweden every four months. After all, in our 1995 TUP study, we reported that there were a "mere" 3.3 million U.S. Internet households and 8.7 million PCs online.
Source: Technology User Profile The most fascinating piece of this can be seen in the workplace. While workplace Internet penetration (53%) is still surprisingly low, it is also rising quickly. The workplace segment grew 76% last year, to almost 28 million PCs by year-end. The consumer and household markets get the most media attention because this segment usually is first to market and is perceived as offering sexier products and services. And yet as we know by now, the business segment is what holds the most promise – the money and attention ultimately follow. The possibilities remain myriad. The more business users surfing the Net, the greater the likelihood that decision-makers discover innovative ways to incorporate Web technologies into business processes. At the current clip, maybe not this year, but possibly the year after that, the workplace market could easily overtake the consumer market in the number of PCs connected to the Internet. The evidence of soaring Internet adoption in the workplace must have marketers drooling. In the interim, home Internet access rises hand-in-hand with newly-purchased PCs. Three-quarters of consumer PCs purchased in 1998 accessed the Internet by year-end, and most of the people using these PCs are Net newcomers. We’ve witnessed an explosion of new users in the last couple of years, with almost two-thirds of Internet users saying they’ve been online for two years or less. So, what do all people do when they are on the Web? Communication is the killer application, making e-mail the No.1 Internet activity for all users. Despite the Web’s luster, e-mail is what fueled the Internet’s rocket-like rise. Why? The network effect: the more people on the Internet, the larger the attraction and value of the Internet for each additional user. Add to that the ever-declining cost of PCs and you begin to see why the Internet has grown the way it has: many people buy cheap PCs as glorified e-mail stations. What will happen next year? It is easy to predict more of the same, but recent data suggests that, at the very least, we are seeing an installed-base effect. The number of installed PCs with Net connections is getting so large that it will be hard for future growth to be as jaw-droppingly impressive. While that is inevitable, it also means it’s time for the Internet to get down to business – business-to-business e-commerce, that is. ©
MetaFacts, Inc., 2000.
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