The Expanding European Web

Taken as a whole, consumers from Western European nations such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom are among the world’s keenest users of the Web.

But there are still differences in the rates of Internet usage and broadband penetration from country to country. Take the UK, for instance.

”Of the five major Western European nations, the United Kingdom has embraced the Internet most avidly — it was the first of these countries to see more than half its population online,” said Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report Western Europe: Internet Users and Usage. “Though the French, Germans and Italians were slower to respond to the Internet opportunity, all three have reached 50% penetration and even Spain is growing now.”

In fact, in Spain the online population is actually growing more rapidly than in France, Germany, Italy and the UK in percentage terms, although from a much smaller base.

eMarketer estimates that this discrepancy will persist through 2011. As other major European countries pass 60% online penetration, Spain will struggle to reach this milestone. Meanwhile, the UK will race ahead to reach almost 75% online penetration.

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