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According to the company's Third Quarter 2001 Global Internet Trends report, some 42 percent of Irish people said they had purchased something over the Internet in the last six months, behind the average of more than 44 percent.
These results include figures on Web shopping from 26 countries excluding North American nations. Of the 26 Ireland came in around 14th for most frequent Internet shopping, level with Denmark but far behind countries including Germany at 65 percent, the UK at 62 percent and South Korea at 55 percent.
While Nielsen's figures represent a sampling of Irish Internet users, on-line shopping activity among more net-savvy Internet users has been shown to be far higher. In the ongoing survey (https://electricnews.net/survey.html) of ElectricNews.Net's own readership, conducted since February, some 90 percent of Irish visitors to ElectricNews.Net's site (645 out of 717 Irish visitors surveyed), said they have shopped on-line or intend to shop on-line in the next three months.
Despite the continuing reluctance to shop among the average Irish surfer, Nielsen's figures have showed that the number of people actively using the Internet in Ireland is growing steadily. According to Nielsen's figures from October, some 622,000 people in Ireland over the age of two are now active Internet users, a rise of more than 10 percent during the past quarter.
Globally Internet access is also growing, and Nielsen estimates that more than 474 million people in the world now have Internet access from home. The Asia Pacific countries broke through an important barrier during the quarter, as more than half the people in six out of the seven markets measured now have Net access from home. The exception is India, where just one in 250 households can access the Internet from home.
"Overall the growth rate in Asia Pacific over the next 12 months will be less than half the growth rate over the past 12 months," said Richard Goosey, chief of measurement science and analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Similarly, in Europe, where most countries have been on-line for some time, an additional seven percent of European households are expected to gain Internet access from home over the next 12 months, equating to just over 10 million households."
Goosey said the figures proved that established regions of Europe were moving beyond the growth phase into mature Internet usage, with the medium now an accepted part of everyday life.
Nielsen//NetRatings drew its figures from more than 40,000 surveys conducted between June and September 2001.
The countries covered include Austria, Belgium/Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico as well as select measures for the US, Canada, and Japan.
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