analisi più estesa in italiano
People online in Italy
One of a series of analyses
by
Giancarlo Livraghi gandalf.it
Data up to February, 2010
There are more frequent updates online in Italian
| Data on the internet in Italy, based on hostcount and compared with other countries, are in the European and international analyses. This is a short summary of a more detailed report in Italian on how many people are connected to the internet in Italy. |
Estimates of the number of internet “users” are unreliable everywhere – and often exaggerated. In the case of Italy, reliable sources indicate that in 2010 there are 22 million people online – or maybe 23, if we include people who use the internet occasionally.
There was considerable growth in 1998-2000. There was relatively slower development in following years, but growth continued, as we see in this graph.
People online in Italy 1997-2009
Numbers in thousands
For several years, since the origin of the internet, there was more use from work (and school) than from home. But the trend changed in year 2000 with more growth of online activity at home – and the trend contintues, recently becoming faster. Use at work was static in 2001, increased in 2002-2005, but less so in following years – there seems to be some development in 2009-2010.
The next graph shows the changes from January 2001 to February 2010 (for people online “at least once in the last seven days”.)
People online in Italy
January 2001 – February 2010
Numbers in thousands
The number of people online is not increasing as fast as it did in 1998-2000, but there is fairly consistent growth trend over time. There are seasonal decreases in the summer and with holidays in december, but they appear less relevant in recent years.
There seems to be faster development in 2009-2010 (interestingly not hampered by the economic and social “crisis”) but it will take more time (probably over a year) to undestand if this will be reducing the, still wide, gap between Italy and the better developed countries.
Another graph shows the same trend, but including less frequent users (“at least once in the last thirty days”) from April 2004 to February 2010.
People online in Italy
April 2004 – February 2010
Numbers in thousands
Home use is developing on a larger scale than office, but both are growing faster in 2009-2010 than in previous years. There is a continuing increase of frequency.
The document in Italian includes many other analyses, by income, education level, occupation, geographic areas, age, gender etcetera. It is also updated more frequently (usually every month.)
International comparisons on the number of “internet users” are always difficult – and often unreliable. But practically all sources indicate that Italy is now the fourth country in Europe by total number of people online (it was overtaken by France in 2006.) Density (percentage of population) in Italy is still far behind the more advanced countries in Europe and elsewhere. In the Italian document there are international comparison graphs. In two other analyses (also in Italian) there are more data on people online internationally and in the European Union.
Other data analyses
