In the first years of the Internet, it was a small world after all, in that one country dominated use. But aggregated research from eMarketer in its "eGlobal Report" shows a weakening U.S. stranglehold as the rest of the world makes strides toward closing the interactive gap.
This finding presents new opportunities for PR and marketing executives looking to tap into the international marketplace through interactive efforts. And, just the fact that so many Americans are online points to the need for all communicators to have in place an interactive strategy.
In 1998, 56.5 percent of the world's Net users resided in North America. The United States alone, as of December 1998, held just over half of the world's Net users.
"But things are changing," says Geoffrey Ramsey, eMarketer statsmaster. "The market in North America is becoming saturated. Most people who want to get online already have done so. For the first time, in January 1999, the majority of Internet users were living outside America."
The numbers will continue to drop, according to eMarketer's predictions. Residents of North America will make up 49.6 percent of the world's Internet users in 1999; 42.9 percent in 2000; 39.1 percent in 2001; and 34.8 percent in 2002.
As American share shrinks, Europe will make the biggest gains with an estimated 84 million Net users in 2002, nearly 30 percent of the world's total. Asia will take the third spot with more than 60 million Net users, or 21.5 percent of the total.
And smaller countries will play a bigger role, according to the Internet Industry Almanac. The top five countries accounted for 73.4 percent of all users in 1998, but they will represent only 63.1 percent by 2000.
With the Euro designed to eventually provide a unifying currency and nearly 25 million people already online, Western Europe is the next growth market for the Web, according to the report.
"Yet the European market remains largely untapped," Ramsey says. "While the Internet penetration rates in the United States and Canada are at 17.8 percent and 19.2 percent, respectively, the penetration level in Western Europe is only 6.4 percent." But as deregulation continues to open the telecommunications market, European presence will expand rapidly.
Asia holds 3.3 billion people, more than half the world's population, so there is an opportunity for growth. Inhibitors to growth in this area, according to analysts, are cultural, institutional and a reflection of traditional business trading practices. The eGlobal Report is available for $795.
(Nancy Davies, eMarketer, 212/677-6300, [email protected].)