June 22, 2005

Internet broadband users are completely changing the Internet landscape. High-speed access is transforming everything. Internet broadband users don't just do more of what dial-up users do: an always-on, high-speed Internet connection fundamentally changes their behavior, online and off.

The new eMarketer report, Broadband Demographics & Usage, analyzes the upheaval widespread broadband connectivity is causing in communications, commerce and entertainment — in other words, the many ways broadband is transforming the Internet landscape.

"The evidence has been anecdotal until now," said Ben Macklin, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the report. "But the data now unequivocally shows that broadband users don't just do incrementally more of what dial-up users do — rather, they integrate the Internet into their daily lives. This changes how they communicate, socialize, shop and access entertainment."

The US broadband market reached an important inflection point in late 2004/early 2005 when the number of broadband Internet users overtook dial-up users for the first time. eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2005 there will be over 105 million broadband users accessing the Internet from all locations at least once a month, and this will rise to over 157 million by 2008.

"Now that broadband users outnumber dial-up users in the US, the transformative power of broadband is truly beginning to be felt," said Mr. Macklin.

"Segmenting the broadband market by demographic characteristics, while useful in the past, is less useful now because of the widespread broadband penetration of the population," said Mr. Macklin. "So at eMarketer we have dissected the current broadband marketplace into broadband cohorts grouped by Internet behavior, usage and technological adoption, rather than purely demographic characteristics."

eMarketer's seven broadband cohorts are:

-- Online retail buyers
-- Online audio/video users
-- Online banking households
-- Home network owners
-- Males ages 25 – 44
-- Online content buyers
-- VoIP subscribers

"eMarketer's first and largest broadband cohort is broadband online retail buyers." said Mr. Macklin. "This is currently a market of approximately 50 million broadband users who have made an online retail purchase in the last 12 months. This cohort will grow to nearly 100 million broadband users by 2008 and will be responsible for nearly 90% of all online retail sales by that time."

The correlation between broadband and online shopping and buying has been identified in numerous studies over the last few years. Many of the early studies pointed toward demographic characteristics (particularly the relative wealth of broadband users compared to dial-up users) in explaining why broadband users were more willing to shop and buy online than dial-up users.

"Now that broadband has moved beyond the classic 'early adopter' demographic to encompass a broader population segment, it is clear that the always-on, high-speed Internet connection is perhaps a more important driver of online shopping than the demographic characteristics of the user," said Mr. Macklin.

"With many broadband users accessing more than one media simultaneously, like the TV and the Internet," said Mr. Macklin, "traditional market segmentation is perhaps less relevant now than it has been in the past. It is not so important who the broadband user is, but what he or she is doing online, that is important."

Source: eMarketer