In 2008, 16.46 million UK households have Internet access, representing 65 per cent of households and an increase of 1.23 million households since 2007, according to researchers at the U.K. Office for National Statistics.
Broadband access penetration now stands at 56 per cent, an increase from 51 percent in 2007. Of the U.K. households with Internet access, 86 per cent have a broadband connection in 2008. And where dial-up penetration was 17 percent of homes using the Internet in 2006, dial-up has fallen to nine percent of homes using the Internet.
The proportion of U.K. households without an Internet connection fell to 35 percent in 2008. But sledding could get tough from here; because broadband resisters say they do not need broadband. The market essentially now is demand constrained rather than supply constrained, as once was the case.
About 34 percent of respondents from households without an Internet connection say "they do not need it." Another 24 percent say they "do not want it." So nearly half of the non-adopters report they have not done so for lack of need or desire to have Internet access.
About a combined 26 percent say cost is an issue, either the cost of access or the cost of equipment. About 15 percent report they do not know how to use the Internet. One would think resistance could not increase, and in absolute numbers it is true that use of the Internet and broadband access has continued to climb.
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On the other hand, as broadband penetration and Internet use has grown, the percentage of resisters who say they do not want to use the Internet has grown from three percent in 2006 to 24 per cent in 2008.
About 71 percent of the U.K. adult population used the Internet over a three month period, an increase of 6.6 percent from 2007. Adults aged 65 plus were still the least likely to use the Internet, with 70 per cent stating they had never used it, down from 82 per cent in 2006.
Over a period of time, Internet usage is likely to approach ubiquity, much as U.S. cable TV penetration has. As younger users are habituated to using the Internet, there will a come a time when there will not be people who never have not grown use to the Internet.
The 16-24 age group uses the Internet the most, with 77 per cent using it every day or almost every day. For the first time the majority of adults aged 65 plus who used the Internet in the last three months, did so every day or almost every day (54 per cent).
Still, the survey is a reminder that there still are significant numbers of potential users who do not find broadband or the Internet sufficiently compelling to drive consumption. That will change over time, but is worth keeping in mind. More than a third of households in the U.K. do not presently claim to have a need or desire for broadband.
That means all contestants are fighting for the allegiance of 66 percent of households, and all of those households already are buying service from a provider. That, in turn, means the fight increasingly is over market share, rather than overall market growth.
Gary Kim (News - Alert) is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Gary's articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jessica Kostek
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