Global Web Index presented a statistical report on the Internet preferences of Europeans in 2014

As you know, the United States is the world leader in implementing IT infrastructure. It is in North America that the largest number of data centers are now located, many of which are real giants. At the same time, Asia is taking in quantity, while showing the phenomenal growth rate in the region of both the computing power of the IT infrastructure and the number of network users. What is happening in this context with Europe, a slide to the periphery? The statistical report “European Digital Landscape 2014” published by the research company Global Web Index helped to shed some light on this issue. The study affected 40 countries in Europe. Although the research data is fresh, even during the collection it was already noted that they undergo changes in the direction of quantitative and qualitative increase,

Global view

The total number of Internet users is probably the most controversial and most dynamically changing parameter. According to some estimates, there are already about 3 billion users in the world at the moment, but it is difficult to say how correct this figure is. At the time of the preparation of the report, the Global Web Index specialists settled on a figure of 2,640,432,161, which is about 37% in percentage terms. Although it is obvious that absolute numbers are rampant, the percentages undergo not so significant changes over short time periods, and the level of trust in them remains quite high.

Internet in Europe

The specificity of the Internet market in Europe is an extremely high percentage of Internet penetration into society. For seven leading countries, this percentage generally surpassed the phenomenal 90%, which shows us the level of market saturation, which is quite realistic to achieve. Obviously, the whole remaining civilized world will one way or another go forward to this level.
At a time when the average penetration rate of the Internet into the life of an average European was 68%, the highest growth potential in Europe remained with its eastern and central parts. Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus showed the lowest result of informatization of society.



The total number of network users in the countries of the continent in 2014 amounted to more than half a billion. It is worth noting that Turkey was not taken into account, although de facto it is still about 45 million users. Although these figures are impressive, they are quantitatively clearly inferior to the Asian region. For comparison, the number of users in China alone has already exceeded 600 million.

Russians and Poles are the most online

Every day, Poles spend an average of 4 hours 50 minutes on the Internet, the same number of Russians. If we take exclusively mobile Internet, then the Italians became leaders in tormenting their smartphone, spending 2 hours 15 minutes daily on the Internet using their mobile devices.

Social networks

When the question of social networks comes up, the division of preferences of the inhabitants of the continent of Europe into two camps is very clearly traced.

Facebook unconditionally dominates Western Europe, with a total of 37 countries in the region, drawing about 232.2 million active users into its networks, which makes up 19% of all users of this social network worldwide. And this despite the fact that only 8% of the world's population lives in these European countries.

Eastern Europe is firmly settled, of course, in VKontakte. The largest number of users in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In these three named countries alone, the number of active users was just over 60 million. Facebook is also among the preferences of the residents of the three above-mentioned countries, but the number of active users in them is only 12.4 million, although it is worth noting the upward trend in this social network in eastern Europe.
As leaders of the entire region in penetrating the Internet into society, Iceland has also become a leader in penetrating the homes of social people. networks. Facebook is popular among 70% of the inhabitants of the island nation.

Malta has somewhat diversified with its 58% social penetration. networks in society Scandinavian club, four countries of which are in the top 5 of the greatest enslavement of social networks. Apparently there is not much fun in the long polar winters.



But the greatest lovers of conversation, as expected, were Italians and Russians. Every day they spend on social networks more than 40% of the total time spent on the Internet.

It may turn out to be interesting that in 66% of cases people in Europe go to social networks using mobile Internet, and this number is gradually growing.



In quantitative terms in the countries of the region, the UK became the leader in accessing social networks from mobile devices. The study showed that in the country there are already 30 million such users.

The picture of sub-regions of Europe

Based on the analysis of the study, Global Web Index employees found it expedient to divide the European continent into sub-regions, based on similar preferences for online behavior and the level of information in society. According to the results of the work 7 parts were allocated.



The presented map can become an important element in understanding the level of information development of countries, determining the differences in the behavior of Europeans in the network.

conclusions

Statistics is an integral part of the correct understanding of complex multi-level processes. Europe is a densely populated continent with a rather colorful social landscape that needs to be carefully explored. This report may interest not only sellers of all kinds of Internet services, but also ordinary network users, who on their basis can compare their preferences with the preferences of people in different countries. An analysis of this report can be important not only for understanding the processes that are going on in different countries of the continent. Being one of the most developed regions of the world, Europe can be considered as a pioneer in the development of information technology, in the footsteps of which, with some delay, the less developed regions of the world will move.