According to Australian Bureau of Statistics’ recent findings (2006-2007), 64% of Australian
homes had Internet access and about 73% of the residents had access to a home PC. As compared to the previous year, the proportion of households with Internet access jumped by four percentage points and the proportion of households with access to a PC increased by three percentage points.

Out of 5.1 million households with home Internet access about 31% had dial-up access and 68% had broadband access ; with broadband Internet connections increasing from 2.3 million to over 3.5 million households. About 72% of the people accessing the Internet at home used a broadband connection.

High income earners, people with higher levels of education and younger people (15 - 24 years) registered relatively higher levels of broadband access. Of the people surfing the web from home about 61% of people are young: aged 15 -20 years and they use the Internet for personal and private purposes  (68%), education (53%) and work/business (17%). 

61% of Australians now using the Internet to make purchases online.

 

Of the approximate 11.3 million people accessing Internet from any location, 61% used it to purchase or order goods of services for private purposes. Not surprisingly a higher percentage of people from more isolated locations such as Tasmania and the Northern Territory used the Internet to purchase / order goods or services for private purposes.

Online Activities of Australians

According to Nielsen-Netratings 2005-06 study, complex online activities and applications are popular largely with children and the younger generation. They use the Internet for entertainment: downloading music, movies and games and indulge in such online pastimes like blogging, podcasting and video posting/sharing on sites such as You Tube. The older demographic use the Internet for such functional activities like shopping banking, news updates and directory searches.

 

Kids and teens aged between 6-17 also have a strong influence on their family’s Internet use, ownership of desktop computers, and adoption of new web-technologies. The penetration of digital pay TV is slightly higher among metropolitan homes with 6-17 year olds than it is among the Australian adult Internet population in metro areas (17% compared with 14%) ; as is laptop ownership (44% compared with 39 %).

People with higher levels of education (graduate level) and more males (than females) surf the Internet for transactional services and information research using the search engines.

Conclusion: The Internet Opportuntiy for your Business

As the Internet usage matures in Australia and broadband becomes more popular; the usage of rich media and other video-on web technologies is here to stay and will increase substantially in the future. Further evidence of this trend and the way in which video is becoming mainstream on the Internet is the fact you can now upload your company video when you advertise a job advertisement with Seek.com.au.

This trend is a huge market opportunity for Internet retailers who want to engage and interact with their customers to change the conventional shopping habits of researching online and then buying local.

 

ROI.com.au with our extensive experience in developing rich media applications is well placed to help your business develop innovative online solutions that places your business ahead of emerging online market trends.