Australian and international Internet usage is following US patterns of the past two years, according to the latest figures from Nielsen//NetRatings.
The April data for Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK show that Yahoo! and MSN are retaining their leadership position for international surfers.
The number of unique sites visited is higher in all five non-US countries than in the US. According to NetRatings, this indicates that global audiences are still engaging in surfing activity, familiarising themselves with the breadth and depth of the Web, while Web sites in the US have attracted more loyal bases and users have streamlined their sessions.
Internet usage figures show Australian Web surfers are registering longer individual surfing sessions than users in the US, though American Web surfers still spent nearly two more hours in total online during April than their closest global counterparts.
Search engines and portals were the most popular categories for Web surfers internationally, while shopping was the most popular category in the US.
