The following table and accompanying text is reprinted from the web site of Nua, Ltd. (<www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online>), an information technology company that publishes numerous surveys of Internet use.

The art of estimating how many are online throughout the world is an inexact one at best. Surveys abound, using all sorts of measurement parameters. However, from observing many of the published surveys over the last two years, here is an 'educated guess' as to how many are online worldwide as of May 1999. And the number is 165 million.

World Total 165 million

Africa: 1.14 million

Asia/Pacific: 26.97 million

Europe: 40.09 million

Middle East: 0.88 million

Canada & USA: 90.63 million

South America: 5.29 million

A note on survey methodology

• 'How Many Online' figures represent both adults and children who have accessed the Internet at least once during the 3 months prior to being surveyed.
• An Internet User represents a person with access to the Internet and is not specific to Internet Account holders. When the figure for Internet Account holders is the only information available, this figure is multiplied by a factor of 3 to give the number of Internet users.
• The figure for 'Asia/Pacific' includes Australia and New Zealand.
• When more than one survey is available on a country's demographics, Nua will take the mean of the two surveys or, in the case where Nua feels one study may be more comprehensive/reliable than the other, Nua will quote this figure over the other.