500,000,000 home users

The number of people with Internet access from home worldwide is nearing 500 million, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

The Fourth Quarter 2001 Global Internet Trends report on Internet access and penetration found that 498 million people now have Internet access from home. In the fourth quarter of 2001, 24 million people gained Internet access at home. The rate of growth of the global Internet population was, in the fourth quarter, nearly double the third quarterís 15 million new at-home users.

The only country in the Asia-Pacific region (which includes Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) with single-digit home access rates in India, where only one in 14 households with telephones have Internet access via a home PC. Singapore showed a 6 percent gain over the third quarter and now has the highest penetration level of any country in Asia-Pacific.

According to eMarketer, there were 445 million people online worldwide at the end of 2001, of which 119 million, or 27 percent were located in the United States. By 2004, there will be 165.5 million US Internet users, accounting for 23 percent of the global total.

www.nielsen-netratings.com