Internet universe grows 10 million to 390 million

ASIA PACIFIC WEB SURFERS WORLD’S MOST ACTIVE: NIELSEN//NETRATINGS GLOBAL INTERNET INDEX

Global Internet universe grows 10 million to 390 million surfers

Auckland, New Zealand, May 28, 2001 - Asia Pacific is now the engine-room of growth in worldwide Internet activity, according to the latest Global Internet Index released today by Nielsen//NetRatings.

Measuring Internet usage in 23 countries, the April edition of the Nielsen//NetRatings Global Internet Index found “Net surfers across Asia Pacific were the most active users of the web. The Index also found the worldwide web population had grown to 390 million people, an increase of 10 million over the previous month.

Key findings were:

- For the first time, New Zealand web surfers joined Australian surfers in being the “stickiest “ in the world (spending an average 52 secs per page).

- Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan showed consistently high Internet usage figures in April compared to world averages (see table);

- Surfers in Asia Pacific (APAC) were the world’s highest web pages viewers on a per region basis;

- The four top nations in the world in terms of page views per person were all APAC markets: South Korea topped the charts with 90 web pages viewed per person, followed by Taiwan (76), Hong Kong (62) and Singapore (56);

- South Korean web surfers, on average, visited 26 unique sites per month (second only to Belgium), followed closely by Hong Kong (25 sites) Singapore (22), New Zealand (19) and Australia & Taiwan (17);

- South Korean surfers spent the most time online in the world (42 mins), followed by Hong Kong (38 mins). Surfers in Taiwan and Australia also spent a significant amount of time online by world standards with

36 mins and 35 mins respectively;

“Surfers within the Asia Pacific region are clearly continuing to drive a high level of global Internet activity,” said Brian Milnes, Managing Director Pacific, ACNielsen, e-ratings.com.

“Korea and Hong Kong, in particular, are very active web markets, while most other countries in the region are also well ahead of the global average across most metrics.

“Surfers in South Korea, Taiwan - and to a lesser extent Hong Kong - are still exhibiting behaviour typical of early Internet markets. This includes spending longer browsing the web to learn the landscape and navigate from site to site. Over time, we would expect surfers in these markets to identify the sites which meet their needs and considerably narrow their monthly surfing activity. This would be in line with our experience in other markets - for example the US where surfers only visited 10 unique sites.”

Nielsen//NetRatings Global Internet Index - Asia Pacific

Number of Unique Sites Visited Per Month, At-Home, April 2001

Rank

(Number of Unique Sites Per Month) Country Number of Unique Sites Visited Time Spent Per Surfing Session Number of Page Views Per Surfing Session Stickiness

(Duration of a Page Viewed)

1 South Korea 26 0:41:59 90 0:28

2 Hong Kong 25 0:38:44 62 0:37

3 Singapore 22 0:32:55 56 0:35

4 New Zealand 19 0:27:30 32 0:52

5 Taiwan 17 0:36:15 76 0:29

6 Australia 17 0:35:43 41 0:52

Global Average 15 0:31:27 44 -

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

About Nielsen//NetRatings

Through strategic partnerships between NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen, the Nielsen//NetRatings audience measurement service collects real-time data from more than 220,000 individuals with access to the Internet around the world. The U.S. panel sample currently consists of 62,000 individuals with Internet access at home and 8,000 individuals with Internet access at work. International panels are under development with over 150,000 individuals with access at home currently being measured in 23 countries, representing nearly 90% of global Internet browser activity.

Nielsen//NetRatings uses unique technology capable of measuring both Internet use and advertising to provide the most timely, accurate and comprehensive Internet usage data and advertising information in the global marketplace. Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behavior, leveraging proprietary data-collection technology from NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research's 50 years of expertise in research and audience measurement, and ACNielsen’s international leadership in offering market research information covering more than 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.

About ACNielsen eRatings.com

ACNielsen eRatings.com is a venture between ACNielsen and NetRatings Inc. ACNielsen, a company of VNU, N.V., is the world’s leading market research firm, offering measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics, consumer attitudes and behavior, and new and traditional media in more than 100 countries. NetRatings is the leading provider of Internet audience measurement technology and analysis. Through the Nielsen//NetRatings service, ACNielsen eRatings.com is creating the first global service for tracking audiences, advertising and user activity on the Internet in more than 30 countries worldwide.

About NetRatings, Inc.

NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT) provides Internet audience measurement and analysis services that enable its customers to make informed decisions regarding their Internet strategies. NetRatings delivers accurate and timely information collected from a representative sample of Internet users and augments it with detailed, flexible reporting and in-depth analyses.

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