Internet use is booming in Europe, according to Internet Access Provider Market published by industry analyst Dataquest. European net user numbers doubled last year to over 35 million, with much of the growth driven by Eastern and central Europe.
The boom is being driven by competition between internet service providers for an increasingly lucrative market, estimated at $4bn in 1998. Businesses are also waking up to the new distribution channel offered by the web, and consumers are taking more interest, stimulated by media coverage.
The report identifies Germany as Europe’s top internet market, with almost 25% of users. The UK has 17%, with the next ten nations representing between 8% and 3% each. Scandinavia is particularly well-represented, with Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland all featuring in the top 15, showing an average growth of 85%.
Petra Gartzen, author of the report and Dataquest’s senior analyst for internet and electronic commerce, says that 20% of the population needs to have web access if the internet is to be used as a viable marketing channel. So far, only the four Scandinavian nations have this figure, although she predicts that the figure of 10% European penetration will rise to a not unrealistic 17% by the end of this year.
There are some trends geographically, including what Gartzen calls a North-South divide. Northern Europe seems to have higher online numbers than its southern neighbors, a pattern Gartzen attributes to higher PC numbers and the speedy recognition of the internet’s potential by telecom operators and governments in those countries.
