MONTREAL - The Internet now has reached a landmark one-billion users worldwide and that number is only expected to grow as wireless devices such as cellphones allow more users to surf the web, says digital tracking firm comScore.
"A key driver to that growth has been its ability to break down cultural barriers and cross over country borders," said Jamie Gavin, senior marketing and communications analyst at U.K.-based comScore.
"I think one of the Internet's great strengths is that it kind of unites people in that way," Gavin said from London Friday.
ComScore found that more than a billion people aged 15 and older used the Internet from home and work computers around the world in December.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Internet sites were the top three visited by the more than one billion users last December.
The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global Internet users at 41 per cent, followed by Europe at 28 per cent and North America at 18 per cent.
"I think that just truly shows what a global medium it is," he said.
"Now it's not only representative of how the small the world is getting, it's actually driving that change itself. So obviously it's quite a big day for the medium."
Chinese users accounted for almost 18 per cent, or about 180 million users, of the worldwide Internet audience followed by the United States with 16.2 per cent or about 163 million users. Japan was third with six per cent followed by Germany with 3.7 per cent and the United Kingdom with 3.6 per cent.
But Gavin noted that while China is a populous country that has adapted its economy to technology, there are still censorship issues that its online users face.
Canada was 11th out of 15 countries with a 2.2 per cent share of the total worldwide Internet audience with about 22,000 users reported last December.
The Middle East and Africa lagged with just five per cent of the global Internet audience.
While comScore tracked Internet use via computers, the cellphone also will help increase its use.
Mobile Internet devices such as small laptops, called netbooks, and cellphones that connect easily to the Net combined with social networking and blogging will make a difference, Gavin said.
"I think those two things working in tandem really are going to make it more accessible to people and it's going to involve and engage people a lot more. From the growth we've seen, you just expect that momentum to get quicker and quicker, really."
Internet-connected cellphones in the Asia-Pacific region and in the Middle East and Africa is a way around not having mass broadband connections via computers.
"The technology is a lot more affordable and people have got the (cell) phones anyway." Gavin said.
Last year, the United Nations telecoms agency reported that the number of mobile phone users would overtake the number of non-cellphone users for the first time.
Analyst Carmi Levy said the Internet is rapidly becoming a primary means of communication.
He said smartphones that allow web surfing will be key in emerging economies and in those that have low Internet use, not personal computers.
"The PC revolution is strictly a western concept," said Levy, senior vice-president of strategic consulting at Toronto-based AR Communications Inc.
"There are generations of future Internet users who are never going to know a desktop (computer). They are going to shrug their shoulders and pull out their smartphones and go back to work."
Levy said even though more than one billion people have used the Internet, there is still a large chunk of the world's population that doesn't have any access to learning and knowledge via the Internet.
Gavin said the Internet with its "massive, endless, infinite pool of knowledge so imminent" is always going to give people more opportunities to learn, but he added it could also be argued that some people will learn less and retain less through using it as an easy way to fill in information.
