See also Cisco's page of Internet Usage stats.

Tracking the Internet Economy:
100 Numbers You Need to Know

By Maryann Jones Thompson

THE STATE OF THE WEB

  • Time it took to register the first million domain names: four years. Time to move from 4 million to 5 million domain names: three months.1

  • Number of pages on the Web: 800 million. Web pages covered by the best search engine: 16 percent.4

  • Yahoo provides 44 percent of all search-engine referrals. AltaVista ranks second with 10 percent.2

  • 94 percent of the top 100 sites post a privacy policy.3

  • Browser-war update – Microsoft: 73 percent. Netscape: 25 percent.2

  • 55 percent of Web servers run Apache server software; 22 percent run Microsoft Internet Information Server.5

  • AOL accounts for 21.5 percent of the consumer ISP market.6

  • 70 percent of global Web traffic goes to fewer than 4,500 sites.7

  • Ratings firms miss as much as 32 percent of Net traffic to large sites.8

  • Top digital media property: AOL, with 53.4 million visitors in July.9

  • Top Web site: Yahoo, with 32.3 million visitors in July.9

    THE ONLINE POPULATION

  • Global Web population in 1998: 142 million. In 1999: 196 million. In 2003: 502 million.10

  • 14 million Americans will access the Net via TV by 2003.12

  • Women online: 48 percent of surfers, up from 42 percent in 1996.11

  • Browsers for news, entertainment: 52, 72 percent.12

  • Net homes watch 10 percent less TV than non-Net homes.15

  • Number of Web surfers in Japan: 8 million. In Latin America: 3 million.10

  • Americans are 44 percent of the Web population. 10

  • Two fastest-growing segments of Net population: kids and teens.14

  • 50 percent of homes have PCs this year, up from 45 percent in 1998.13

  • 177 million Americans will be online by 2003. 63 million surfed in 1998; 81 million will in 1999.10

  • Public schools with Net access: 89 percent. Public schools with classroom access: 51 percent.16

  • Web users with household incomes of at least $100,000: 15 percent. Users who did not graduate high school: 3 percent.11

    CONSUMER E-COMMERCE

  • Global e-commerce spending 1998: $50 billion. 1999: $111 billion. 2003: $1.3 trillion.10

  • 1.2 million surfers bought via a Web auction in 1998.14

  • $51 billion in 1998 offline spending was influenced by Net shopping.12

  • Seven products bought by the most surfers: books, software, music, travel, hardware, clothing, electronics.12

  • 14 percent of music will be sold online by 2003.14

  • 24.4 million surfers bought online in Q2 1999, up 10 million from last year.12

  • Four times as many holiday shoppers will buy online this year, ringing up $9.5 billion in 1999 sales.21

  • 93 percent of online transactions are paid for by credit card.22

  • Online prescription sales will hit $970 million in 2003.14

  • 25 million Web gamblers worldwide will produce $1.2 billion in revenues for online gaming sites.23

  • Europe's share of Web commerce in 1998: 11 percent. In 2003: 33 percent.10

  • Online brokerages accounted for 14 percent of equity trades in Q4 1998.24

    CORPORATE E-COMMERCE

  • B-to-b sales of products and services online will grow from $131 billion this year to $1.5 trillion in 2003.17

  • 48 percent of 7.8 million small businesses have Net access.12

  • CEOs worldwide who believe the Internet will have a major impact on the global marketplace within three years: 92 percent.18

  • The average e-commerce site costs $1 million and takes five months to develop.19

  • 32 percent of business travel ($38 billion) will be booked online by 2003.17

  • Insurance firms not selling online: 88 percent. Banks not offering online banking: 94 percent.20

  • IP telephony: from 310 million minutes worldwide in 1998 to 2.7 billion by year-end 1999.10

  • Worldwide I-Builder revenues: $8 billion in 1998. $78 billion in 2003.10

    WEB MARKETING

  • Number of sites seeking ads and the average CPM, June 1999: 2,111 and $34.23. In June 1998: 1,175 and $37.78.33

  • 75 percent of online ad revenues flow to the top 10 Web publishers.37

  • Portion of the print classified-ad budgets for recruitment spent online in 2003: 20 percent. 17

  • 40 percent of surfers surveyed remembered seeing a specific banner ad.34

  • 1998's top Web ad buyer: Microsoft, at $35 million. Top nontech Web ad buyer: GM, at $13 million.35

  • Average banner-ad click-through rate in July: 0.58 percent.36

  • Online ad spending in 1999: $2.8 billion. Online ad spending in 2004: $22 billion.17

    NET FINANCE

  • Median 1998 premoney valuation of Net startups that secured venture capital: $17.3 million. In 1995: $5.9 million.25

  • 1998 Internet Economy revenues: $301 billion. 1998 Internet Economy workers: 1.2 million. 30

  • Biggest expense for e-commerce firms and portals: marketing, at between 60 percent and 65 percent of revenues.26

  • 154 Net IPOs have raised $13 billion through August. And 230 Net IPOs currently are in registration.27

  • 1998 U.S. real economic growth attributed to IT and Net industries: 29 percent. GDP attributed to IT and Net industries: 7.8 percent.32

  • Jeff Bezos' net worth: $10.1 billion. Jay Walker's: $10.2 billion.28

  • Tax-free online shopping's cost to state and local governments: $170 million, or only 0.1 percent of the tax base.31

  • Value of Net M&As for first-half 1999: $43.4 billion (up 63 percent over 1998).29

  • Net VC for first-half 1999: $6.3 billion (55 percent of all VC funding).25

    NOTE: All numbers refer to U.S. market unless specified. SOURCES: 1Network Solutions; 2Web Side Story; 3Georgetown Internet Privacy Study; 4NEC Research Institute; 5Netcraft; 6Cahners In-Stat; 7Alexa Internet; 8FAST Data Reconciliation Project; 9Media Metrix; 10International Data Corp.; 11Mediamark Research; 12Cyber Dialogue; 13ZD Infobeads; 14Jupiter Communications; 15Nielsen Media Research; 16U.S. Department of Education; 17Forrester Research; 18Booz-Allen Hamilton and the Economist; 19Gartner Group; 20Forrester Research and the American Bankers Association; 21Harris Interactive; 22Bizrate.com; 23Christiansen/Cummings Associates; 24Credit Suisse First Boston; 25VentureOne; 26Legg Mason Precursor Group; 27The Standard From IPO Monitor; 28Forbes, July 5; 29Thomson Financial Securities Data; 30Cisco Systems/The University of Texas; 31Ernst & Young; 32U.S. Department of Commerce; 33AdKnowledge; 34AOL/Ipsos-ASI; 35Intermedia Advertising Solutions; 36Nielsen NetRatings; 37Internet Advertising Bureau