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Report: India, Russia and China see biggest leaps in Internet users

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
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Elinor Mills

India, Russia and China were the countries with the biggest increases in Internet users over the past year, according to a study released on Tuesday by comScore Networks.

The number of unique Internet users 15 years or older rose 33 percent in India to 21.1 million, 21 percent in Russia to 12.7 million and 20 percent in China to 86.8 million, according to the study. China has the second largest Internet population in the world, after the United States. The number of Internet users 15 years or older in the U.S. was 153.4 million users, up 2 percent. Worldwide, the number rose to 747 million, up 10 percent. The figures exclude traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes and access from mobile phones and personal digital assistants.

Canada, Israel and South Korea led the list of countries in average number of hours users spend online. Meanwhile, Microsoft's network of sites was ranked the top worldwide Web property for January with 510.3 million unique visitors, followed by Google with 502.5 million visitors and Yahoo with 467.8 million visitors, comScore said.