This article provides information relating to the number of people who use the Internet by language, nationality, geography, etc.
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As of June 2009, approximately 1.67 billion people worldwide use the Internet, according to studies by Miniwatts Marketing Group.[1]
Most Internet users speak the English language as native or secondary language. Although the total number of native English speakers in the world is about 322 million, English is spoken as a second language by up to 1.2 billion people around the world. They make their contributions to the Internet in their own language as well as in English. A study on the presence of Romance languages on the Internet, published by the Latin Union in collaboration with FUNREDES, showed that as of November 2007, 45% of the webpages were written in English, 3.8% in Spanish, 4.41% in French, 2.66% in Italian, 1.39% in Portuguese, 0.28% in Romanian and 5.9% in German.[2]
Chinese is the most spoken native language on Earth, and the second most-used language by Internet users. According to CNNIC, the number of Chinese Internet users increased by 42% in 2008 to a total of 298 million. This high rate of growth is expected to have a significant impact on the Internet in the near future.[citation needed]
Notably absent from the table below is Hindi, the most widely spoken language in India. This is due to the high numbers of English educated Indians. Virtually all Indian colleges and universities teach in English. English, along with Hindi, are the two official languages of India. The Indian population online is also increasing rapidly.
The source of the figures in the table below is Global Reach[3]. These are estimates of the world online population by language for September 2004.
| Position | Language | Users (millions) | Users | Total Population (millions) | GDP (b) | World Economy | GDP Per Capita |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 295.4 | 35.2% | 508 | |||
| 2 | Chinese | 110.0 | 13.7% | 874 | $6,328 | 13% | $7,200 |
| 3 | Spanish | 86.0 | 12% | 410 | $2,500 | 8.9% | $7,100 |
| 4 | Japanese | 67.1 | 8.4% | 125 | $3,400 | 8% | $27,200 |
| 5 | German | 55.3 | 6.9% | 101 | $2,679 | 5.8% | $26,800 |
| 6 | French | 33.9 | 4.2% | 100 | $1,517 | 4.2% | $19,700 |
| 7 | Korean | 31.3 | 3.9% | 78 | $887 | 2% | $11,400 |
| 8 | Italian | 30.4 | 3.3% | 62 | $1,251 | 3.6% | $20,100 |
| 9 | Portuguese | 29.4 | 3.3% | 176 | $1,487 | 3.6% | $8,400 |
| 10 | Russian | 22 | 2.7% | 167 | $822 | 1.8% | $4,900 |
| 11 | Dutch | 18.9 | 2.4% | 27 | $575 | 1.4% | $28,500 |
| 12 | Malay | 14.2 | 1.8% | 229 | $258 | 1% | |
| 13 | Arabic | 13.5 | 1.7% | 300 | $678 | 1.6% | $4,200 |
| 14 | Polish | 9.6 | 1.2% | 44 | $359 | $8,100 | |
| 15 | Swedish | 7.7 | 9 | $237 | $26,300 | ||
| 16 | Thai | 6.9 | 46 | $406 | $8,800 | ||
| 17 | Turkish | 6.8 | 67.4 | $431 | $6,400 | ||
| 18 | Vietnamese | 5.8 | 84 | ||||
| 19 | Persian | 4.6 | 71 | $84 | |||
| 20 | Romanian | 4.4 | 26 | $108 | $4,200 | ||
| 21 | Czech | 3.8 | 12 | $121 | $10,000 | ||
| 22 | Hebrew | 3.8 | 5.2 | $132 | $21,000 | ||
| 23 | Danish | 2.9 | 5.4 | $171 | $31,700 | ||
| 24 | Finnish | 2.8 | 6 | $142 | $23,600 | ||
| 25 | Hungarian | 2.5 | 10 | $96 | $9,600 | ||
| 26 | Greek | 2.4 | 12 | $189 | $15,800 | ||
| 27 | Catalan | 2.4 | 6.6 | ||||
| 28 | Norwegian | 2.1 | 5 | $136 | $27,200 | ||
| 29 | Slovak | 1.8 | 5.6 | $47 | $8,700 | ||
| 30 | Serbo-Croatian | 1.0 | 20 | ||||
| 31 | Ukrainian | 0.9 | 47 | $115 | $2,300 | ||
| 32 | Punjabi | 0.8 | 38 | ||||
| 33 | Slovene | 0.8 | 2 | $22.90 | $10,900 | ||
| 34 | Icelandic | 0.2 | 0.3 | $6 | $23,500 | ||
| World Total | 801.4 | 6460 | $41,400 |
Top Languages Internet Stats were updated for Sept. 30, 2009[4]
| Position | Language | Users (millions) | Total Population (millions) | GDP (b) | % all Internet users | Internet penetration by language | Language growth (2000–2008)% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 430.8 | 2039 | $14129 | 29.4 | 21.1 | 203.5 |
| 2 | Chinese | 276.2 | 1365 | $1127 | 18.9 | 20.2 | 755.1 |
| 3 | Spanish | 124.7 | 411.6[5] | $3198 | 8.5 | 27.6 | 405.3 |
| 4 | Japanese | 94 | 127.3 | $4326 | 6.4 | 73.8 | 99.7 |
| 5 | French | 68.2 | 425.6[6] | $2223 | 4.7 | 16.6 | 458.7 |
| 6 | German | 61.2 | 96.4 | $2850 | 4.2 | 63.5 | 121.0 |
| 7 | Arabic | 59.9 | 357.2 | $694 | 4.1 | 16.8 | 2063.7 |
| 8 | Portuguese | 58.2 | 239.6 | $666 | 4.0 | 24.3 | 668.0 |
| 9 | Russian | 45.2 | 275 | $822 | 2.6 | 32.3 | 1,359.7 |
| 10 | Korean | 34.8 | 72.7 | $605 | 2.4 | 47.9 | 82.9 |
| 11 | Italian | 34.7 | 58.2 | $1490 | 2.4 | 59.7 | 162.9 |
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