ICTs

Household Internet Use in France: Blogging and Streaming

Over 30 million consumers in France (57.7% of the +11 year old population) are now connected to the internet at home, up 6% year on year. This compares to an EU average of 54% although penetration levels range from 80% in the Nordics and the Netherlands, to just 25% in Greece and lower for the recently- joined Eastern countries like Bulgaria (19%).

A recent study by Mediametrie detailing internet use in France reveals several trends, notably that:

Internet penetration rates continue to see good growth
France boasts one of the best high speed access networks
Streaming is gaining in popularity as is “catch-up TV”
French consumers seem attached to their blogs

At 57.7%, France is only slightly above the EU average for internet use by households yet 93.4% of connected households in France benefit from fast access (ADSL or cable). This puts France at the EU lead for access speed and more than double the EU average of 44% (source Eurostat). This reflects the deliberate policy by the French government since early 2000 when France lagged most EU neighbours in terms of household internet pick-up. The effort has been especially active since 2004, increasing by some 40 percentage points over the last 3 years.

Of internet users at home, 77.2% connect daily with an average daily use time of 51 minutes in November 2007. Nearly 31% of internet households, equivalent to 9.32 million, already watch TV via internet, the majority of which was for “catch-up TV”. Some 36% of households listened to the radio over internet of which 46% was for “catch-up radio”, equivalent to 5 million households. Of these, 25% involved downloading pod casts.

But the real successes of 2007, according to the Mediametrie study are blogging and streaming (video over internet). The latter jumped 40% over the year, equivalent to 13 million users. By December 2007, 51.6% (13.76 million) of French household internet users logged on to blogs, an increase of 30% on 2006. Of these users, some 5 million are regular “bloggers”. This makes French internet users proportionally the “biggest bloggers” of Europe!