NEWS
One-fifth (22 per cent) of the world's population will be online by 2011 - with around 1.5 billion users expected to be surfing the web.
The expected growth represents an increase of around 36 per cent on the 1.1 billion internet users in 2006.
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The most significant areas of growth are expected to be the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), according to the JupiterResearch report, titled Worldwide Online Population Forecast, 2006 to 2011: Emerging Economies Catalyse Future Growth.
Vikram Sehgal, research director at JupiterResearch, said the increasing infrastructure development and purchasing power of these countries will drive consumer adoption of the internet.
The report suggests the online markets in Canada, Japan, the US and Western Europe are now mature and so will see relatively slow growth.
The US' share of the global online population is expected to decline from 21 per cent in 2006 to 17 per cent in 2011.
David Schatsky, president of JupiterResearch, said identifying the biggest growth areas provides a "tremendous opportunity" given the way the internet has changed business during the last decade.
