by Tatiana Repkova

In a 10 percent increase from the previous year, 747 million people aged 15 and up used the internet worldwide in January 2007, according to comScore Networkspercent

Among the top 15 countries (ranked by penetration), Internet audiences in India, the Russian Federation and China increased the most in 2006, growing 33, 21 and 20 percent respectively. China now represents the second-largest Internet population in the world, with 86.8 million users, after the United States, which rose two percent year-on-year to 153.4 million users. As a measure of engagement, comScore also analysed the top 10 countries ranked by average hours online per visitor for January 2007. Canada topped the list, with the average user spending 39.6 hours (and 41.3 hours/ month among broadband users) online during the month. Rounding out the top 5 were Israel, South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom – all countries with high broadband penetration.

www.comscore.com; http://www.fipp.com/Default.aspx?PageIndex=2002&ItemId=13599; 21 March 2007