May 5, 2001	atimes.com

The Koreas Korea steaming ahead online SEOUL - As the nation most wired with an Internet high-speed broadband communications network, South Korea is leading the global Internet market with the highest usage rate of audio-video, game and communications sites in the world. Global Internet measurement company NetValue Korea said the finding was contained in the results of its analysis on Korean Internet usage from March 2001. The ratio of the households connected to the Internet in Korea reached 39.9 percent, 2.6 percent up from February, according to the new report. Also in March, Korean Netizens accessed the Internet on an average of 14.8 days and spent 16.5 hours on the Web, resulting in 1.9 more days on the Web, but a 1.5 hour decline in terms of total access duration. When it comes to gender differences in Internet usage, the gender gap declined in March from the previous month to show 52.9 percent males and 47.1 percent females. The figures were 53.7 percent and 46.3 percent respectively in February. This gender gap is the lowest in Asia and second lowest in the world following the United States (52.7 percent male, 47.3 percent female). This implies that the number of the female Netizens in Korea has been on a gradual increase to grab the second position in the world in terms of gender equality in Internet usage rate. As for the Internet access method, more than half of the households in Korea are wired with the high-speed broadband communication network, which continued to grow further to 61.4 percent in March from 57.3 percent in February. About 73.9 percent of the Internet users in Korea accessed the Internet at home, while 27.8 percent accessed the net in PC rooms and 18 percent in their office. This means that a majority of Korean Netizens use Internet services at home. Activity type analysis showed that most activities except for the Web and file transmission were more active than the previous month, especially a big jump in the use of instant messaging. Activities except for Web and file transfers became more active compared with February. In particular, the use of instant messaging and audio-video increased from last month. Women prefer audio-video, while men prefer the game and file transfer protocol. (Asia Pulse)

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