Several emerging trends within the online activity profiles of internet users in Australia have the potential to significantly change how persons communicate and interact socially and economically, and the structure of existing business models. A few of these trends are outlined below.
Online communications—VoIP and instant messaging
While email remains the cornerstone of online communications, Australians are increasingly using other services such as VoIP, instant messaging83 and social networking are increasingly featured in the online communication activities of Australians. In some cases consumers are substituting these services entirely for traditional email or using email less often.
During December 2010, approximately 2.3 million Australians aged 14 years and over made a VoIP call via their computer and 2.3 million used instant messaging. In comparison, during December 2009, 1.7 million persons made a VoIP call via their computer and 2.6 million used instant messaging.84 Approximately 1.4 million persons used services such as VoIP, instant messaging or social networking to communicate online instead of email during December 2010 compared to 736,000 during December 2009.85 The ‘real time’ characteristics of services such as VoIP are perhaps the main attraction for users of these services over email although Roy Morgan survey data also shows a lower level of usage of instant messaging during December 2010 relative to December 2009.
Social networking
The use of online social networking services (a service, platform or website that focuses on building social relations among persons) has wide appeal among Australians. Social networking enables internet users from different socio-economic backgrounds to interact online and to complement ‘off-line’ social and, increasingly, work relationships. Within Australia, approximately 8.4 million persons accessed social network sites such as Facebook from home during December 2010, compared to 8 million during March 2010.86 Social networking also increasingly has a business and service delivery dimension. Growing numbers of businesses and government
organisations are recognising the potential of social networking channels to raise their organisational profiles and improve customer service delivery.87 Table 7 provides an overview of the number of internet users in Australia accessing a selection of online social network sites from home during December 2010.
83 Instant messaging is when two or more persons logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service exchange text messages in real time. It is more interactive than email because messages are sent immediately, whereas email messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or minutes.
84 Roy Morgan Single Source, December 2010.
85 ibid.
86 Nielsen Online, December 2010.
87 ACMA, Communications report 2009–10 series, Report 1—Australia in the digital economy: The shift to the online environment.
Table 7 Australians visiting selected social networking sites from home, December 2010
Site Number of persons
accessing site (000s)
Yahoo!7 Groups 331
Note: Relates to home internet users aged 2 years and over.
Source: Nielsen Online, December 2010.
Shopping online
For consumers the internet has made it easier to access information on the cost and availability of products and services and to compare offerings across companies. For business, the internet presents opportunities and challenges. The internet has enabled the development of online marketing and distribution channels, complementing ‘brick and mortar’ operations.88 It also continues to present challenges to businesses with customers able to move beyond traditional geographic boundaries and access a greater number of service providers, regardless of their location.
However, the issue of the internet disrupting traditional business models is not just confined to the retail sector. For example, the traditional news’ print sector is also faced with the challenge of changing consumer preferences for news consumption where the internet provides ready access to a greater variety of news and information sources generally free of charge.89
According to Nielsen Online, an estimated 7.4 million internet users in Australia accessed mass merchandising web sites providing retail trade services (e.g. clothing, books, groceries, etc) from home during December 2010. This is compared to 6.8 million during March 2010.90
Roy Morgan Research data also shows that 1.6 million Australians aged 14 years and over also used price comparison web sites (sites which enable consumers to compare prices of goods and services across businesses) during December 2010 when making decisions to purchase a product or service. Examples of such sites include
Getprice.com.au, Myshopping.com.au and Webjet.com.au.
Approximately 2.2 million Australians aged 14 years and over purchased a good or service online during December 2010 compared to 2 million during December 2009.91 Online shopping activity has been found to vary according to age, gender, household income, level of education and employment in general. More information can be found in previous research published by the ACMA report Australia in the digital economy—
Consumer engagement with e–commerce.92
88 ACMA, Communications report 2009–10 series, Report 1—Australia in the digital economy: The shift to the online environment, 11 November 2010.
89 ACMA, Communications report 2009–10 series, Report 4—Changing business models in the Australian communication and media sectors: Challenges and response strategies, January 2011.
90 Data for December 2009 not available.
91 Roy Morgan Single Source, December 2010.
92 ACMA, Australia in the digital economy—Consumer engagement with e–commerce, November 2010, www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_312364.
ABS reports that approximately $143 billion worth of internet orders were received by Australian businesses during 2009–10, representing an increase of 15 per cent in the 12 months to June 2010. These figures include business to consumer and business to business transactions.93
Table 8 presents data on the number of Australians visiting a selection of retail shopping, auction and price comparison sites from home during December 2010.
Table 8 Australians visiting selected retail/ auction websites from home, December 2010
Site Number of persons
accessing site (000s)
eBay 4,240
Amazon 1,698
Shopping.com.au Network 1,340
GetPrice 1,290
Lasoo.com.au 1,154
Big W 988
JB Hi-Fi 897
Harvey Norman 811
Myshopping.com.au 796
Gumtree 780
DealsDirect.com.au 773
Kmart Australia 743
Dick Smith Electronics 688
Target Australia 672
MYER 640
OO.com.au 613
The Good Guys 607
PriceDumper.com 588
Rewards Central 574
Coles 574
Cudo.com.au 571
NexTag Network 530
Grays Online 498
BigPond Trading Post 484
Borders 479
Webjet 449
Note: Relates to home internet users aged 2 years and over.
Source: Nielsen Online, December 2010.
Online video/audio content
With developments in software applications and ready and cheaper access to increased internet connection speeds, online Australians are accessing video and audio content in increasing numbers. For example, Nielsen Online data shows that an estimated 5.5 million persons accessed one or more of the online video distribution sites identified in Table 9 during December 2010, compared to 5.1 million during March 2010. Approximately 5.3 million persons accessed YouTube from home during December 2010, compared to 4.8 million in March 2010.
93 ABS, 8166.0 – Summary of IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business, 2009–10, June 2011.
Bandwidth heavy activities in particular are becoming increasingly common among internet users as more content is offered over the web through various services. These include user generated content services, such as YouTube, commercially-produced content available through channels such as iTunes movie and BigPond Movies and catch-up viewing services of television broadcasts such as the ABC’s iView service.
Table 9 provides an overview of the number of home internet users in Australia accessing a selection of video content distribution sites. At present digital content distribution via the internet in Australia is dominated by the user generate content site YouTube.
Table 9 Australians visiting selected video sites from home, December 2010
Site Number of persons
accessing site (‘000s)
YouTube 5,326
Google Video 894
Vimeo 350
ABCiview 283
Metacafe 225
Dailymotion 197
NineMSN Video 133
BigPond Movies 188
Bing Videos 118
Note: Relates to home internet users aged two years and over.
Source: Nielsen Online, December 2010.
In addition, many sites, such as online news sites, are providing streamed video content for consumers as a complement to traditional news text. Online news sites attract large numbers of Australians with an estimated 6.2 million internet users accessing these sites from home during December 2010.94 The growing significance of online digital video and audio activities is also reflected in Roy Morgan Research survey data presented in Figure 20 while the growth in the volume of data being downloaded via the internet in Australia is reflected in Figure 21.
94 Nielsen Online, December 2010.
Figure 20 Select digital content activities undertaken online during December 2009 and 2010
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source, December 2010.
In terms of Australians accessing digital content online, the biggest growth area in online activities relates to streaming video clips or television programs (Figure 20).
During December 2010, 2.7 million Australians aged 14 years and over streamed video clips or television programs online compared to 1.2 million during December 2009, a 125 per cent increase.
Volume of data downloaded
The increasing level of activity undertaken online appears a product of growth in the numbers of internet users and more data being downloaded per internet user. During the December quarter of 2010, 191,83995 terabytes of data were downloaded via the internet, compared to 155,50396 terabytes downloaded during the June quarter of 2010 and 127,954 terabytes during the December quarter of 2009 (Figure 21). This was an increase of 23 per cent compared to the June quarter of 2010 and 50 per cent compared to the December quarter of 2009. According to the ABS, the bulk of data downloads continues to occur via fixed-line services, accounting for 91 per cent of downloads during the December quarter of 2010, (excluding downloads over mobile phone handsets).97
In terms of data downloaded per subscriber, during the December quarter of 2010, an average of 18.8 gigabytes of data was downloaded per subscriber. This is roughly equivalent to 120 hours of streaming video on YouTube or 60 hours of watching
95 This increases to 195,868 when including downloads via mobile phone handsets. ABS only began collecting mobile phone handset downloads in June 2010.
96 This increases to 156,220 when including downloads via mobile phone handsets.
97 This falls to 89 per cent when downloads over mobile phone handsets are considered—ABS, 8153.0–
Internet Activity, Australia, December 2010.
1,293
Number of persons aged 14 years+ ('000s)
Dec 09 Dec 10
television programs on the internet.98 This compared to an average of 16.8 gigabytes downloaded per subscriber during the June quarter of 2010 and 14.6 gigabytes during the December quarter of 2009.99
In addition, the ABS reports that a comparatively smaller 4,029 terabytes of data was downloaded via mobile phone handsets during the December quarter of 2010, compared with 717 terabytes downloaded during the June quarter of 2010. While this is a significant increase of over 462 per cent in six months, it represents only two per cent of the overall volume of data downloaded by Australians via the internet during the December quarter of 2010. On average 0.5 gigabytes of data was downloaded per mobile phone handset internet subscriber during the December quarter of 2010, well below the average download volume recorded for other internet subscribers
(18.8 gigabytes).
Figure 21 Volume of data downloaded via fixed-line and mobile wireless internet services
Note: For consistency of time series, figure excludes data downloaded via mobile phone handsets. ABS began collecting volume of downloads via mobile phone handsets from June 2010. The ABS undertakes its Internet Activity Survey biannually for the June and December quarters.
Figures are for ISPs with more than 1,000 subscribers, and include downloads by household, business and government subscribers.
Source: ABS, 8153.0–Internet Activity, Australia, December 2010.
98 These figures were derived from properties of the streaming files on the catch-up ABC or SBS websites and from the properties of the ACMA video clips on the YouTube site.
99 Calculated on the basis of ABS data sourced from 8153.0–Internet Activity, Australia, December 2010.
Average data downloaded includes fixed and mobile wireless broadband (dongle, datacard and USB modem) subscribers and excludes mobile phone handset subscribers.
81,352
99,249
127,954
155,503
191,839
0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000
Dec 08 Jun 09 Dec 09 Jun 10 Dec 10
Terabytes downloaded
Quarter ending