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March 29, 2007

Overall, many observers are noticing that, by a wide margin, Britain has become Europe's leading Internet economy. The Internet in the United Kingdom benefits from a rather strong cycle of consumer purchasing power and low-cost connectivity throughout most of the country.

As telecommunication competition lowers down overall operating costs, there is a growing number of British citizens that are upgrading to broadband speeds, especially in large cities.

Globally, Britain now enjoys the fifth-largest broadband population. With over twelve million high-speed households last year, the U.K. ranks just ahead of Germany, with 11.8 million, and France, with about 11.2 million users.

Faster broadband connectivity simply mean that British Internet users now spend up to 6 hours more online every week. This month, approx. 47 percent of U.K. households had a high-speed connection. Some estimates say that by 2011, Britain's broadband penetration will increase to nearly 77 percent, or 20 million households.

A new generation is growing up in Britain that takes "always on" Web connectivity for granted. For U.K.'s youths, the Web is a virtual playground, a place to meet friends, exchange ideas and add like a new extension of their classrooms.

Ultimately for their parents, the World Wide Web is a serious place to conduct new business, evidenced by the fact that about 32 percent of all British consumers have made at least one purchase online.

Recent numbers show that a higher percentage of U.K. broadband customers used the Web for business-oriented tasks, including shopping or price comparison, and reading financial, weather, news, health, yellow page and legal information, according to Point Topic, a Britain-based Internet research firm.

Overall, larger numbers of broadband users also engaged in entertainment activities, including reading blogs, browsing through celebrity news and gossip, along with playing online games.

However, in Britain, it seems that no generation is left behind. About 24 percent of British Internet users are over the age of fifty. As a matter of fact, a poll conducted in February reveals that among British pensioners, the Web is even more popular than gardening is.

According to Informa's Converging Media Index, Britain is now the most digital country in Western Europe.

Informa's CM Index measures advanced-digital-content consumption using broadband, digital TV and mobile data.

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Source: eMarketer