The total number of Australian internet subscribers rose by 17% in 2010 and the average amount of data downloaded increased by a further 29% over the same period, according to research released today by the ACMA.
‘These increases reflect again the ongoing digital boom in online social and economic activity,’ says Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman. ‘More and more Australians are going online to do their shopping, banking and social networking.’
The report, The internet service market and Australians in the online environment, found that that more than 15 million people aged 14-years and over used the internet during the December quarter of 2010, up from 14.2 million during the same quarter in 2009. In addition, 71% of internet users went online at least once a day in December 2010, compared to 67% in December 2009 – an increase of 1.2 million users.
E-commerce, video content and social networking services are increasingly drawing Australians online, with 7.4 million people accessing retail and auction web sites, 8.4 million accessing social networking sites and 5.5 million accessing video streaming sites from home during December 2010.
Chapman says the lift in internet speed ‘continues to contribute to the increasing intensity of online activities as well as growth in the use of digital video services online.’
This will be of increasing importance to radio businesses as consumers continue to go on line to stream audio and to interact with radio stations via social networking, podcasting and web downloads.
On average, 18.8 gigabytes of data was downloaded per internet subscriber in Australia during the December quarter of 2010, roughly equivalent to 120 hours streaming of video content online. This compared to 14.6 gigabytes during the December quarter of 2009, an increase of 29%.
During December 2010, 3.1 million people accessed the internet via their mobile phone handset, compared to 1.9 million during December 2009, more than a 50% increase in mobile consumption, which will be significant to radio, which is a highly mobile medium.
Download the full report at the link below.