Language Usage on the Internet

The number of recorded internet users has reached the staggering figure of 812,931,592 worldwide. Leading in absolute terms, with more than 35% of total internet users, English is smashed by those 526,288,835 users that access internet in a different language. While a considerable share of people from non English-speaking countries are more or less proficient in the language, recent data has shown that in China 85% of the users prefer to access pages in their native language. That figure is 84% for Japan, 82% for Brazil and Spain, 81% for Argentina and Peru and 79% for Germany.       

Language Highlights

ENGLISH 

• USA – There are 202.45 million Americans now online, according to InternetWorld Stats (July, 2004). Since there are 45 million Americans who do not speak English at home, they also access the internet in their own native language. Ethnologue estimates that 8.4 million Americans cannot read English (out of the 45 million non-English-speaking people in the US).
• UK has 34.9 million people online (Source: Nielsen NetRatings, Aug., 2004). 
• Canada has 20.45 million people online, most of whom can access the internet in English, according to Internet World Stats (2004). 
• Australia has 13.5 million (Nielsen NetRatings, Aug., 2004)
• Ireland has 1.3 million people online (Source: Amarach Consulting, Sep., 2003).
• South Africa has 3.5 million people online (Source: Internet World, 2004)

CHINESE

There are 87 million people online in mainland China, according to CCNIC (July, 2004). Hong Kong represents another 4.9 million (Nielsen/NetRatings, Aug., 2004). One must also add 8.8 million in Taiwan (ITU, Dec., 2003) and 2.14 million people in Singapore online. ITU estimates 8.7 million Malaysians online (2003), where Mandarin Chinese is spoken by one-third of the population. There are another 1.5 million Americans who access the internet in Chinese.

JAPANESE

There are 66.5 million internet users in Japan (Nielsen NetRatings: Aug., 2004). GlobalReach estimate 280,000 Americans accessing the internet in Japanese.

SPANISH

Research by Nielsen NetRatings shows over 14.3 million people online in Spain (Aug., 2004). Some 12.25 million people are online in Mexico (source: ITU, Dec., 2003). Within the US, there are 26 million Hispanics online.

GERMAN

There are currently 46.6 million Germans online, to which one must add 3.1 million German-speakers in Switzerland (72% of the 4.3 million Swiss online), and 3.7 million in Austria (source: ITU, Dec., 2003). This gives a total of 54.2 million German-speaking people online worldwide. 

FRENCH

There are 22.4 million people in France online (Nielsen/NetRatings, Feb., 2004). French-speaking Canada follows at 2.3 million people online (according to The Daily Statistics, March, 2001). One must add 1.0 million French-speakers in Switzerland and 900,000 in Belgium. Globally, there's a total of 36.4 M French-speaking people online.

PORTUGUESE

There are some 19.3 million Brazilians online, according to Nielsen/NetRatings (Aug., 2004). To this must be added another 4.4 million in Portugal (source: ITU, Dec., 2003).

DUTCH

The latest figures from Nielsen NetRatings state that there are 10.8 million people online in Netherlands (Aug., 2004). Among the 3.8 million people online in Belgium three-quarters of them, or 2.9 million, are Flemish (Dutch-speaking). Combined Dutch-speaking online populations is 13.5 million.

POLISH

Some 8.9 million people from Poland are online, according to the ITU (Dec., 2003). GlobalReach estimate another 100,000 Polish in Germany and 410,000 Americans who access the internet in Polish from home. That makes a total of 9.5 million Polish-speakers online worldwide.