THE GROWTH OF THE INTERNET

A project by Michelle Shepard
A student at the University of Vermont
CDAE85 Spring 1999
Questions to be answered by this project:
  • In what countries is Internet use the highest, and where is the highest growth rate?
  • How has the number of people using the Internet grown in the last five to ten years?
  • How much and how fast has the web grown?
  • How much has the number of hosts connecting to the Internet increased recently?
Here are some interesting facts about the Internet from the last few years:
    In 1996, $2.6 billion dollars worth of transactions were conducted via the world-wide web from more than 32 million devices (PC's, Net-TV etc.).
    More than 50% of all remote commerce transactions are conducted on the web (as opposed to fax or phone).
    Non-US markets are poised for the largest Internet growth.
    200 million pages (URLs) existed as of September 1997.
    As of 1/97 there were 71 million users of electronic mail.
    30% of Internet users visiting US Web sites are from outside the US.

Click here for more statistics from lsilink.com

    Estimated US consumer spending on online retail purchases during 1998 holiday season, 8.2 billion dollars
    Estimated percentage of retail stock trades now taking place on them Internet: 25
    Bank's cost to process an in-person transaction: $1.07
    Bank's cost to process an Internet transaction: $0.01

Click here for more statistics from openmarket.com

Here are the results of this project:

  • The top five countries using the Internet are: the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
  • Latin America has the highest Internet growth rate.
  • From 1993 to 1996 the number of hosts on the Internet grew from 1.3 million to 9.5 million.
  • In just one year, April 1998 to April 1999, the number of hosts grew from 33 million to 52 million!
  • The number of web sites grew from 130 in 1993 to 650,000 in 1997.
  • Click here for a table showing populations of various countries of the World online
Here are some other useful links with information about the Internet:
Click here to email me
Click here to visit my homepage
Last updated 21 April 1999