Number of Internet Users Continues to Climb

The number of users accessing the Internet surpassed 50 million in September, according to research released by International Data Corp., an information technology research and consulting firm. The figures, outputs of IDC's Internet Commerce Model, indicate that by the end of September there were 53.2 million users of the Internet worldwide, 44.2 million of whom accessed the World Wide Web (the difference being business email users who do not access the Web). This represents a jump of 26 million Internet users in 1997. Twenty-three million of the 53 million users are accessing the Internet from outside the U.S. The model also shows 30% of the worldwide installed base of personal and network computers are now connected to the Internet. Furthermore, the number of pages (URLs) on the Internet has grown from 72 million in December 1996 to 200 million in September 1997, and IDC predicts that by yearend there will be 1 million commerce transactions per day on the Internet.