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By Sonya Rabbitte, 7 March 2002 16:45

NEWS Almost ten per cent of the world's population has home internet access, as registered internet users jumped to half a billion people by the end of last year. Figures just released from Nielsen/NetRatings show that by the fourth quarter of 2001 498 million people worldwide were accessing the internet from home. However, the figures illustrate a continuing digital divide, with two thirds of users coming from western Europe and the US. According to Nielsen/NetRatings 39 per cent of home internet users - or 191.7 million people - live in the US. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa a third of households with a phone line also had internet access, putting the EMEA region in second place with 27 per cent of the world's web-enabled population. Germany, Switzerland and Finland led the region in terms of absolute number of connected households. 35 per cent of households in Germany had home access compared with just six per cent in South Africa. Twenty two per cent of global internet users live in Asia Pacific, a figure Nielsen/NetRatings attributed to high take up rates in South Korea and Singapore where 58 per cent and 60 per cent of households with telephone lines also had home internet connections. At the other end of the spectrum, just seven per cent of Indian households with a phone line had internet access, the lowest level of penetration out of the 26 countries surveyed by Nielsen/NetRatings. Overall Latin America had the lowest rate of access of any area, with just four per cent of households having internet connections While Latin America trailed in overall figures, three quarters of households in Brazil with a home PC, and half in Mexico were connected to the internet.