Here are the latest estimated figures of the number of each language population on the Internet (native speakers): those who have access to the Internet on a worldwide scale (that is, who have email access) or to the Web. We classify by languages instead of by countries, since people speaking the same language form their own online community no matter what country they happen to live in. All figures are in millions.

Online Language Populations

	Internet access (M)	% of entire world online pop.	Total pop. who speak this language (M)	GDP ($B) Source: OECD (combined)	%'age of world GDP	Aver. Salary ($ 000)	Net Hosts (000's, 1/98, source: Network Wizards
English	79 1	63.8%	322	$9,000	26.7%		6250
Non-English	48.7	39.4%	5,400	$24,700	73.3%
European Languages  (non-English)			1,450	$10,000	29.6%
Dutch	2 2		20	$463		$20.7	440
Finnish	1.4 3		5	$134			$20	450
French	3.3 4		72	$1600	4.7%	$24	586
German	6.5 5		98	$2160	6.4%	$25	1184
Greek	0.15		12	$91		$7.5	27
Hungarian	0.2		15				46
Italian	2 6		40	$1165	3.9%	$20.5	254
Polish	.7		44	$118		$2.5	78
Portuguese	1.3 7		170	$1093	3.2%	$6.3	157
Russian	0.6 8		170	$721	2.0%		20
Danish	0.6 9		5	$146			159
Norwegian	1.4 9		4	$145			286
Swedish	3 9		10	$237			319
Scandinavian languages (total)	5		19.25	$528
Spanish	11.2 10		266	$1500	4.5%		241
TOTAL EUROPEAN LANGUAGES (excl. English)	34.1	27.6%	1,450	$10,000	33.3%		4169
ASIAN LANGUAGES
Chinese (Mandarin)	3.1 11		885	$850	2.5%		317
Japanese	10.2 12		125	$2,680	7.9%		1168
Korean	0.88 13		75				122
Malaysian	0.25 14		18	$193			32
Thai	0.12 15		20	$417			14
TOTAL ASIAN LANGUAGES (excl. English)	14.6	11.8%		$7,500	25%
TOTAL WORLD	12316		5.950	$33,700

This is the fastest-growing group of people online today: those who do not access the Internet in English (these figures represent access from home). Think of this chart as a city of 48.5 M people: the city of those online who do not use email (or the Web) in English. It is a city where 24% are Spanish-speaking, 21% are Japanese, 13% are German-speaking, etc.

Notes:   The figures in the first column are not meant to represent the number of people who speak the languages in question. They correspond to the number of people online in each language (i.e. native speakers). There is some overlap between English and non-English figures, principally in the U.S., where there are 4 M people online who do not speak English at home (source), and are thus bound to access the Internet in their native language as well as in English. (Although some of these must be online only in their native language, or only in English.) The totals of people in each language family comes from the Ethnologue. Figures for the Gross Domestic Products and populations were taken from the CIA World Factbook, at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/nsolo/wfb-all.htm, and from the United Nation's Infonation (http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/infonation/e_infonation.htm). Language use in the U.S./Canada: many of the people who access the Internet in other languages live in the U.S./Canada (that is, when they access it from home; we assume that at work they access the Net in English). The figures are impressive: 32 million Americans switch from English to another language when they get home at night, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (1990 figures). A recent article in the press gave this statistic as 45 million. In 1990, the number of Americans speaking another language than English at home contained these major language groups: Spanish: 29 M (the only figure for which we have recent figures10) French: 1.9 M (this and the rest of these figures are from the 1990 U.S. Census) German: 1.5 M Italian: 1.3 M Chinese: 1.3 M Polish: 0.72 M Korean: 0.63 M Japanese: 0.43 M Portuguese: 0.43 M Scandinavian languages: 0.2 M The logical conclusion is that if they are not speaking English at home, and they read newspapers in their own language, most likely they want to access the Internet in their own language too. This implies that non-business products can be targeted better to this group in their own language than in English. In the following calculations, we will assume a uniform 23% of the American population is online, although the reality is probably that this percentage is higher in the Asian-American cultures and lower in other language groups in the U.S.   (1) English: U.S. Intelliquest announced recently that one-quarter of Americans are online, and estimates the total number at 62 M. A study by Intelliquest found that 56 M Americans are online. (More details at Infoworld). Other countries with English as their official language: Canada has 6.5 M (Nielsen, 12/95) of which 78% live in English-speaking part of Canada (hence 5.1 M English-speaking people online) Australia has 4 M (AGB-McNair survey 11/96) The U.K. has around 5 M (Inteco, Sept., 1997) or 6 M (NOP Research Group) online population. South Africa has 700 K (South Africa Internet Services Industry Survey, 10/97) New Zealand has 530 K (NUA Internet Survey, Dec., 1996) Ireland has 100 K (NUA Surveys, 9/97). Non-Anglophone countries: Israel: 500 K people online (NUA Internet Survey; Hebrew does not seem to be very used online, probably because of the necessity of using double-bit software in order to view the letters on the screen) India: 80 K (http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/6927.html) The Philippines: 100 K The Middle East: a little over 200 K (DIT Net). Another study from the Dabbagh Information Technology Group in Dubai finds the total number of Internet users in the Arab World, excluding Israel, is 215 K as of July '97. Adding up these figures yields 72 M people online who use English on the Internet (including non-Anglo-Saxon Americans at work). (Of course, this covers Anglo-Saxon countries only, and does not include Continental Europeans who can read English. Continental Europeans, even if they can read English, live their life in their own language, access media in their own language, not in English.) (2) Dutch: The latest figures from Trendbox, a Dutch strategic marketing research firm. They estimate that 900 K people in Holland access the Web. According to one top Internet marketing firm, the Web represents one-half of the online population in Holland (as many people have email at work, but no access to the Web). That makes 1.8 M Dutch people online. There are another 150 K Flemish (=Dutch) speakers online in Belgium. (3) Finnish: In Finland, a study at http://www.toy.fi/uusia/internet.html reports 28% of Finland's 5 million population having used the Internet. The New York Times (20 Jan 97 A1) stated that 60% of Finnish households have access to the Internet, and the article goes on to say that there are 62 Internet host computers for each 1,000 people, twice the proportion of U.S. figures. (4) French: French studies by Mediangles show that 1.4 M people in France access the Internet from work, home or elsewhere (fall, 1997). Since that study was made, France Telecom launched a campaign for the French to use their Minitel to correspond by email (teletext, of which there are 12 M in France); a reasonable cost, too: $0.07/minute. There have been predictions that the number of French with email access may soon be 2 M. Quebec, if it follows the rest of Canada, would yield 1.3 M people online (20% online, out of a 6.5 M population in Quebec). To this must be added 200 K online French-speakers in Switzerland and Belgium, and another 440 K Americans who access the Internet in French from home. (We will not count the French-speaking users in Africa, although there are a good 7 to 10 M Africans who speak French: Internet access is simply not readily available in most African countries.) This gives a total of 3.3 M French-speaking people online worldwide. (5) German: Germany is reported to end 1997 with around 5 M people online (ComCast newsletter), Switzerland (600 K in German-speaking Switz.) and Austria (500 K, according to the Information Technology). Still need to add figures of online Germans in South America. We estimate another 330 K Americans who access the Internet in German from home. Interestingly enough, 1.9 M Germans use T-Online to connect to the Internet (Deutsche Telekom's ISP service). This gives a total of 6.5 M German-speaking people online. (6) Italian: Alchera Strategic Vision and Demoskopea estimated that figures from Italy show 1.4 M Italians are online (as reported at the Altavista world conference 4/97). www.intesys.it/Novita/InternetInItalia.html. A recent study by Eurisko (a very reliable research company) indicates that 1.8 million Italians say they use the Internet. We estimate another 260 K Americans who access the Internet in Italian from home. This gives at least 2 M Italian-speaking people online worldwide. (7) Portuguese: Internet News and "Business Week", estimate 1 million people online in Brazil. To this must be added another 200 K in Portugal (NUA Surveys, 9/97). We estimate another 90 K Americans who access the Internet in Portuguese from home. Total estimated Portuguese online users: 1.3 M (8) Russian: The Russian Non-Profit Center for Internet Technologies estimates that there are now about 600,000 Russians online, a number that doubles every year. (9) Scandinavian languages: A poll made for a new IT magazine "Dagens IT" (major business publication) gave 2.2 M in Oct., 1996. A more recent poll (spring, 1997) states that 46% of the Swedish population has Internet access. We have averaged the figures to 3 M Swedish online. NUA Surveys reports that both Norway has 1.4 M and Denmark has 0.6 million people online. (10) Spanish: A study by EGM (Estudios General de Medios) undertaken by the AIMC (Asociacion para la investigacion de Medios de Comunicacion) on the Internet user population of Spain estimates 1.45 M people online in Spain (Nov., 1997). Saatchi & Saatchi announced in "Business Week" (http://www.businessweek.com/premium/06/b3564014.htm, on 1/30/97) that there are 8.5 M people online in Latin America, of which 1 M of them in Brazil. That makes 7.5 M Spanish-speaking people online in Latin America. There is so much Net activity in Spanish that U.S. online media buyer Doubleclick set up an operation in Spain. Within the U.S., there are 29 M Latinos (according to the San Jose Mercury, Oct. 2, 1997). 4% of the U.S. online population is Latino (according to NUA), or 2.2 M. This group should not be ignored or considered inconsequential because of lower income: Neilsen Media Research reports the average household annual income among Bay Area Hispanics to be $58 K (Source: San Francisco Business Times, Feb. 13, 1998 edition, p. 5). Adding non-U.S. and U.S. Spanish-speaking online populations yields 11.1 M Spanish-speaking people online worldwide. Asian Languages: (11) Chinese. Newsbytes reports that there are 275 K online in Hong Kong alone (June, 1997), to which one must add 600 K in mainland China (source: Wired Online). There are also 1.26 M in Taiwan (according to a recent survey conducted by Internet Information and Intelligence). In Singapore, there are 500 K online (Source: Nielsen), who access the Internet in Chinese, English and the local dialect. We estimate another 500 K Americans who access the Internet in Chinese from home. This gives a total of 2.8 M speaking-speaking people online. This makes a total ot 3.1 M Chinese online. (12) Japanese: Latest report at IDC (Japan) estimates there are 10 M Internet users in Japan in 1997, up from five million in 1996. In September, 1996, ActivMedia claimed that, "Over the past three months, the growth in the Japanese listings on the Web has been triple that of English. Three months ago Yahoo-Japan had 7% as many company listings as the general Yahoo listings - it now has 13%. The growth in Japan is not just restricted to companies, consumers are also flooding the Internet. With conservative growth predictions, the Japanese user population promises to be around 30 million by the year 2000." As there are estimated to be some 700 K Japanese living in the U.S., we estimate another 200 K Japanese Americans who access the Internet in Japanese. That makes a total of 10.2 Japanese speakers online (not counting those in Europe). (13) Korean: According to the National Computerization Agency (NCA), as of Dec., 1996 the number of Korean Internet users is estimated at 732 K (Nikkei BP BizTech). We estimate another 150 K Americans who access the Internet in Korean from home. (14) Malaysian: Nikkei BP BizTech reports there were 250 K people in Malaysia online (Feb., 1997) (Nikkei BP BizTech). (15) Thai: There are 120 K people in Thailand online (Feb., 1997) (source: Nikkei BP BizTech). (16) World: This number still does not yet approach the 137 million electronic mail boxes now in use worldwide, according to the Telecommunications Report International (quoted at Network World Fusion in early July, 1997). It is highly probably that many of the 4 M Americans who are online but do not speak English at home access the Internet in both English and their native tongue. Hence the total worldwide Internet population is not equal to the sums of the English and non-English online populations.               If you have more accurate statistics, they would be greatly appreciated: globstats@euromktg.com   Want to know when this page is updated with new resources? Register your e-mail address by filling out the form and clicking on the button to the right. The URL-Minder robot will sends you mail when this page changes: Editor: The Global Business Centre is edited by EMA, a marketing communications consultancy that assists clients attract Website visitors worldwide from all countries that are online. 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