Worldwide Internet Reach Continues To Grow

The Web continues to grow in every region of the earth. Based on year over year figures from Internet World Stats, the Web sees over one million new users per week added to the world total. Other statistics include:

Total number of worldwide Internet users: 1,076,203,987 (as of November 27, 2006).

Internet users by region:

Asia: 378,593,457
Europe: 311,406,751
North America: 231,001,921
Latin America/Caribbean: 85,042,986
Africa: 32,765,700
Middle East: 19,028,400
Oceania/Australia: 18,364,772

Percent of population using Internet by region:

Asia: 10.3%
Europe: 38.6%
North America: 69.7%
Latin America/Caribbean: 15.4%
Africa: 3.6%
Middle East: 10.0%
Oceania/Australia: 54.1%

Language used by approximate number of Internet users:

English: 322,000,000
Chinese: 144,000,000
Japanese: 86,000,000
Spanish: 81,000,000
German: 58,000,000
French: 49,000,000
Portuguese: 34,000,000
Korean: 32,000,000
Italian: 28,000,000
Russian: 23,000,000

If your ecommerce website functions in the top four languages, you can effectively reach well over a half billion people. If it is English only, you still can reach nearly a third of the world Internet population. Statistics like this are increasingly dangerous to ignore for most businesses that want to expand. The world is becoming flatter and that levels the playing field for your company (and your rivals).