One Billion People: Internet Sets New Milestone

The internet has finally done it.

The number of people on the web has passed the one billion mark, as of December, according to comScore. Really only between 15 and 22 percent of the world’s population is on the net. There are still a LOT of people yet to go.go.

Using the comScore numbers, here is the breakdown by country and region (in unique visitors as of December, 2008; some of the numbers are rounded):

Top 15 countries, by Internet population:

1. China: 179.7 million
2. United States: 163.3 million
3. Japan: 60.0 million
4. Germany: 37.0 million
5. United Kingdom: 36.7 million
6. France: 34.0 million
7. India: 32.1 million
8. Russia: 29.0 million
9. Brazil: 27.7 million
10. South Korea: 27.3 million
11. Canada: 21.8 million
12. Italy: 20.8 million
13. Spain: 17.9 million
14. Mexico: 12.5 million
15. Netherlands: 11.8 million

Worldwide Internet Audience

• Asia Pacific: 416 million (41.3%)
• Europe: 283 million (28.0%)
• North America: 185 million (18.4%)
• Latin America: 75 million (7.4%)
• Middle East & Africa: 49 million (4.8%)