Internet Users, Time Online Increases in Europe

The amount of time European at-home Internet users spend online has risen dramatically in the past nine months, according to data compiled by Jupiter MMXI, and so has the number of users going online.

The total monthly time online increased by 94 percent in Britain from June 2000 to Feb. 2001. During the same period, it increased by 225 percent in France and 226 percent in Germany. The average time spent online per unique visitor each month was highest in Germany (more than 13 hours), followed by Spain (more than 9 hours), Norway (9 hours) and Italy (8 hours).

"The tremendous growth of time spent online by European consumers, together with a steady increase in the number of Internet users confirms that the Internet itself is not affected by the current financial issues some dot-coms are facing," said Steffan Engdegard, advertising analyst at Jupiter MMXI. "The softening Internet advertising market is primarily a result of the financial reality catching up with dot-com's extravagant spending. It's now up to the sellers of Internet advertising to show traditional advertisers the most efficient and effective ways of reaching the growing Internet audience."

The favorite online destinations of Europeans include not only portals and ISP Web sites, but almost 60 percent of Europe's at-home online population visited entertainment sites such as WindowsMedia.com, RTL.de and MP3.com in February 2001. Retail sites, including country-specific Amazon sites, Bol.de and CDNow.com have 46 percent reach in Europe. Business and finance sites such as Lloydstsb.com, EGG.com and Comdirect.de were visited by 36 percent of the European online population.