Internet Statistics for Australia - Overview

Internet Statistics Australia

Six-and-a-half million Australians (individuals and companies) have Internet access at home or work, and they spend more than $11 billion dollars a year in online purchases.

Is your web site optimised to take advantage of this enormous marketing opportunity available in Australia today?

The statistics we have produced below tell the story of the continuous rise of the Internet as a market force in Australia. The Internet Statistics tell us that Australians are demonstrating an increasing willingness to purchase their goods and services online. In fact, Australia is now the third highest country in terms of e-commerce usage.

Australians love online shopping - In the 12 months to June 2006,

Australians spent more than $11 billion dollars online.

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in the 2006 Census that Internet access had almost doubled between 2001 and 2006.

At the end of the March quarter 2007, there were 6.43 million active Internet subscribers in Australia, comprised of 761,000 business and government subscribers and 5.67 million household subscribers.

The number of non dial-up subscribers was 4.34 million, compared with dial-up subscribers of 2.09 million recorded at the end of March 2007.

Non dial-up subscribers increased by 16% between September 2006 and March 2007, while dial-up dropped by 16%. The growth in non dial-up was driven mainly by household subscribers.

AC Nielsen's Online Consumer Press Release of 18 September 2006 gives this data from their survey -

• 5.9 million Australians now shopping online, up 13 percent over the past 12 months
• Average shopper spending up 19 percent to $1,900 per annum
• Airline tickets still the number one online purchase

Sydney, 18 September 2006: Annual online spending reached a record high with total online spending in Australia totaling $11.35 billion in the 12 months to June 2006, or around $1,900 annually per shopper, a report by market research company AC Nielsen has revealed.
AC Nielsen’s Online Consumer Report, released today, compiled the views of approximately 23,000 regular Internet users on their online purchasing behaviours and attitudes, spend and preferred online retailers and payment methods.
The report found that the number of consumers shopping on the Internet had jumped by 13 percent in the past 12 months to 5.9 million and, of these shoppers, over half (51%) had made repeat purchases.

source - AC Nielsen Online Consumer Press Release

A recent article released by Visa card, (Visa International, 27 April 2005), further highlights the boom in e-commerce sales within Australia.

Australians are the third biggest online shoppers in the world, and spent 38 per cent more buying products and services over the Internet than a year ago, according to new figures released today by Visa International. 
Australians spent A$617.1 million in ecommerce sales using Visa cards in March 2005, up from A$446.9 million in March 2004.  This puts Australia in third place of the world’s biggest online spenders by total sales volume, behind only the US and UK, and ahead of Canada and Japan.  The average ecommerce transaction value in Australia was A$142.

source - Visa Asia press release

A remarkable measure of the Internet's impact on the Australian economy can be seen in this chart, which compares advertising spending levels over different media types in Australia for 2005.

In Australia, the rise of e-commerce advertising spending has been spectacular, with online advertising expenditures already surpassing those of traditional marketing media such as Outdoor, radio and cinema advertising by 2005.

In comparison with figures for 2003, the market has more than tripled - in the 2003 financial year, the total spent on online advertising was less than $200 million.

Source - Audit Bureau of Verification Services (ABVS) and Nielsen Netratings.

The figures for 2006 showed that the Australian online advertising market grew 61.5% in 2006 to reach $1 billion dollars for the first time, according to the December 2006 Online Advertising Expenditure Report.

Overall Market – Quarterly Revenues

These statistics continue to grow rapidly. According to the September 2007 Online Advertising Expenditure Report, Online advertising expenditure in Australia for the third-quarter 2007 (3 months ended 30 September, 2007) totaled $347.75 million, the largest quarter recorded.

This is an increase of $22.25 million (or 6.8%) from the second-quarter 2007 (3 months ended 30 June 2007), and is an increase of $84.75 million (or 32.2%) from the third-quarter 2006.

Since the commencement of record keeping of online advertising expenditure, expenditures have increased 18 of the past 22 consecutive quarters. The September quarter continues the historical trend of an increase from the June quarter.

Online Advertising Categories

Of critical importance is the category share within the spending statistics - almost 50% ($159,500,000) was spent in advertising in search engines and directories.

Total online advertising expenditure for Search and Directories Advertising for the three months ended 30 September 2007 was $159.50m, an increase of $12.25m (or 8.3%) on the second-quarter 2007, and an increase of $55.5m (or 53.4%) on the third-quarter 2006.

Search Engine Marketing - Quarterly Expenditures

In the chart of total quarterly expenditure growths in search engine advertising from 2002 to 2007, this market segment continued to grow.

Since the commencement of record keeping of online advertising expenditure, expenditures have increased in 21 of the past 22 consecutive quarters.

Our purpose in providing you with the charts and data in this page is to point out the huge market available to any company willing to extend their marketing reach into the world of the search engines.

The statistics above to do with search engine advertising lead to a question - what is the best form of search engine marketing?

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With core search engines Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask.com collectively serving 9.6 billion search results in December 2007 (see chart at right), it is obvious that search engine marketing should be a major component of any marketing campaign.

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