Resistors and Unconnected left as US Internet Penetration stalls

Regular use of the Internet by U.S. adults has flattened out at 63% of the population, and further penetration will require the conversion of "Unconnected" consumers and Internet "Resistors", according to a new analysis from Mediamark Research.

Even though 79.5% of adults have access to the Internet at home, work or other location, data from 26,000 in-home interviews conducted each year by Mediamark show that just 63% of adults have used an online service or the Internet in the last 30 days. And while the Internet-using population continues to increase, the company's data from an eight-year period show that growth has slowed from a sprint to a crawl.

'Unlike a phone-recruited sample, data derived from a geographic probability sample are not inherently skewed toward Internet-wired households,' said Andy Arthur, VP of Client Services. 'Suggesting a long-term plateau in growth, our data show there is an entrenched group of non-connected adults and a diehard group of resistors that promise to hold out for the foreseeable future.'

In the 12-month period ending in April 2004, Internet and online users increased by just 1.7% of the adult population over the same period a year earlier; this compares to an 11.3% increase between 1999 and 2000.

Beginning with spring 2002, growth among the highest-usage groups (the young, up-market segments) appears to have reached a saturation point — with usage levels of those aged 18-24, those with household incomes of $150,000 or more and those with post-graduate degrees all having gone flat.

What does this leveling off suggest for the future? Among Internet non-users (those who have used neither the Internet nor an online service in the last 30 days) there are two functionally distinct groups. The first consists of Internet Resistors, who currently represent 16.5% of all U.S. adults. Resistors, who have access to the Internet but do not use it, have stubbornly represented 20% of all adults with Internet access since Mediamark began measuring access to the medium.

The second group is the Unconnected, those with no access anywhere. Traditionally, it has been conversion of the unconnected that has fueled the growth of the Internet-using population. The unconnected have, of course, shrunk during the expansion of Internet connectivity; they are now only 20.4% of the adult population.

However, the unconnected population appears to be stabilizing: the percentage of unconnected adults has decreased only 1.9% since autumn 2002.

'As a medium for reaching US adults on a regular basis, the Internet may well be at saturation, with just under two-thirds of the population genuinely on-line,' says Arthur. 'Internet resistors remain a stubborn, stable group of holdouts, while the unconnected have become increasingly difficult to convert for reasons related to age, language and disposable income. Substantial growth in the Internet-using population is unlikely to resume without cheaper Internet connections, more Spanish-language Internet provider services and, perhaps most important, compelling new reasons for non-users to switch sides.'

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