The UK internet audience rose by 1.9 million over the last year, with people over the age of 50 accounting for more than half of new users. UK web surfers expanded by 5% to 38.8 million in May, compared with 36.9 million in the same month last year, according to UKOM, a division of market […]
The UK internet audience rose by 1.9 million over the last year, with people over the age of 50 accounting for more than half of new users. UK web surfers expanded by 5% to 38.8 million in May, compared with 36.9 million in the same month last year, according to UKOM, a division of market research company Nielsen that measures internet usage.
An additional 1 million people aged 50 or over are now online, representing 53% of that growth. Most of those new users (722,000) were men and 15% (284,000) were women. The next largest group were women aged 21-34, who accounted for 272,000, followed by teenage girls. An additional 231,000 females between the ages of 12 and 20 now have access to the internet.
01/07/2010
Alex Burmaster, European internet analyst at UKOM/Neilsen said: “The internet is getting older in more ways than one. Not only is the medium itself maturing but the audience is shifting towards older age groups. The fact that one in four Britons who use the internet today are 50 to 64 years old proves it is no longer the sole preserve of the young.”
The most popular UK sites for the 50-and-over audience include Saga, electronic greeting cards company Jacquie Lawson and health site RealAge. Nearly 90% of RealAge’s traffic is generated by over-50s.
Video site Flixxy, which had 108,000 unique users in May, according to Nielsen, is also heavily reliant on older users, with 80% of its traffic coming from those aged 50 or above.
