Dominican Republic Leads Caribbean Internet Users

The Caribbean may be lagging behind three other areas of the world when it comes to Internet usage but the Dominican Republic continues to lead in the region with the most web surfers.

Latest statistics compiled by the Miniwatts Marketing Group based on International Communications Union and Nielsen data, show that while the Caribbean lags behind Asia, Europe and North America when it comes to Internet penetration, the DR has the most web users with a whopping 3 million.

Still that`s just an estimated total of 33 percent of the entire 9.6 million who live in the Spanish-speaking nation. But it`s more than double that of Jamaica, the next Caribbean nation that manages to come closest to the DR with most web users.

Miniwatts data on World Internet Usage, shows Jamaica with 1.5 million or just over 54 percent of its 2.8 million nationals, taking the second spot. Cuba was third with 1.4 million web users while Haiti and Puerto Rico tied for the fourth spot with 1 million users, respectively.

Smaller Caribbean nations like Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados may not have many nationals when compared to the larger four nations dominating the web sphere, but the percentage of Internet penetration among their population is very high.

In Antigua, 65,000 out of a population of 85,000 are on the web while in Barbados, 188,000 out of an estimated population of 284,589 are web surfing. In St. Lucia, over 68 percent or 110,000 nationals are surfing while in St. Vincent, 66,000 out of 104,574 nationals are on the web.

Other Caribbean nations lagged far behind. In Anguilla, only 4,200 out of 14,436 are on the web while in Aruba, just 24,000 of its 103,065 residents are web surfing. In The BVI, only 4,000 of the estimated 24,491 population are online while in the Netherland Antilles it is less than one percent of its 227,049 people.

Out of 1.2 million people in Trinidad and Tobago, just 17 percent are online said the research. Out of Guyana`s population of 752,940, 25 percent or 190,000 are online while Dominica and Grenada had 36 and 25 percent of their population online respectively. Over 44 percent of Cayman Islanders are on the web compared to 27 percent in the U.S.V.I. and over 23 percent in Montserrat. In Guadeloupe the percentage of the population on the web is close to 20 while in Martinique, the number is closer to 33 percent.

Globally, Latin America and the Caribbean makes up just over 10 percent of the world`s Internet users.
source:Caribbean World News