"comScore Networks today announced the launch of comScore World Metrix, the first true estimate of global online audience size and behavior based on activity from the world’s largest online behavioral research panel. The comScore World Metrix panel has active representation from countries that comprise 99 percent of the global Internet population. In launching comScore World Metrix, the company announced that 694 million people, age 15+, used the Internet worldwide from all locations in March 2006, representing 14 percent of the world’s total population within this age group. This number marks the first worldwide universe estimate based on a consistent methodology across all countries.

Notably, comScore World Metrix includes measurement of the major Asian countries, including China, Japan, India and Korea, which represent nearly 25 percent of the total worldwide online population (or 168.1 million users), and which, in the aggregate, are 11 percent larger than the U.S. (152 million users).

"Today, the online audience in the U.S. represents less than a quarter of Internet users across the globe, versus ten years ago when it accounted for two-thirds of the global audience," said Peter Daboll, president and CEO of comScore Media Metrix. "This is a sea change of enormous proportion, and comScore is pleased to be able to provide measurement to aid the world’s largest marketers in understanding how the world uses the Internet."

A press release from comScore.