% of households online

The proportion of households online can be seen as a measure of the potential market for online services. At September 2001, an estimated 52% of Australian households were online placing Australia equal 7th with Norway behind Sweden and Hong Kong (58% each), South Korea (56%), Singapore (55%), the US (54%), and New Zealand (54%). Data for the US was only available for Internet connections via a home computer - nevertheless, against this indicator alone the US performed strongly.

A home computer remained the dominant Internet access device for households across the 14 countries benchmarked. The majority of online households in Australia accessed the Internet via a home computer (accounting for 49% of all households) while a further 3% of all households accessed the Internet via other devices such as a work computer, the TV, a palm pilot, mobile phone, etc. This was similar to other countries with the exception of Ireland and the United Kingdom where 12% and 10% of households respectively, accessed the Internet at home via other devices including work PCs, palm pilots, the TV or a mobile phone.

As shown by the following table - the UK in particular has seen strong initial growth in the take up of digital television during the period January 1999 to June 2000 (17 percentage points or an increase of around 850%).

Source: Oftel Residential Survey, July 2000