UK Web use doubles year-on-year

According to a report published the NOP Research Group as part of its regular Internet User Profile Study, the Internet is attracting 10,900 new adult users in the UK each day. The research also shows that some 10.6 million adults accessed the Net at least once during 1998, an increase of 48 per cent compared with 1997. "These findings suggest that Internet usage in Britain has undergone spectacular growth in recent months," says NOP's Rob Lawson. "One of the principal factors explaining this was the introduction, by Dixons, of Freeserve in the last quarter of 1998 which has given the company somewhere in the region of one fifth of the market overnight. "However, even removing this from the equation, overall growth was still strong during the six months to December 1998," he said. ®