Apr 15 2007
More Women Online than Men
According to eMarketer in 2006 the number of women online users in the United States has surpassed that of men–52% to 48% of all Internet users.
Estimates from other research sources concur that females represent the majority of US Internet users, ranging from 53% (Arbitron and Edison Media Research, for Internet users ages 12 and older) down to 50.6% (comScore Media Metrix, for Internet users ages 2 and older).
The eMarketer article also states a larger percentage of the US female population ages 4 and older are online users–78% of the US female population, versus 77% of the male population. Studies on adults only show a larger percentage of adult males use the Internet. The high rates of online usages in the teenage US population probably accounts for the difference.
The eMarketer article concludes that there is no gender gap when it comes to Internet usage in the young population. Also knowing that females are the ones who make most shopping decisions, and largely the ad and marketing industries design campaigns around this fact, these changing statistics have important implications for online marketing as well.
2 responses so far
Mana, not bad for Crackberry thumb-blogging. I hope you’re recovering well.
So males were early adopters but females will rule the web. Sounds about right.
In my world it also looks like the number of female emarketers is starting to surpass that of men…. but I’ve done no study on it.