Radio: Programs: Russian Internet Forum kicks off Wednesday ...

Let's take a break from the various small improvements available to Russians online, such as various e-governmental services and look at the bigger picture.

One of the major internet-related events of Russia has kicked off in Moscow on Wednesday - it's actually two events in one! The cryptic name RIF+KIB transforms into Russian Internet Forum + Conference: Internet and Business. As one might guess from the name, this grand event not only highlights the latest achievements of Russian internet companies, but also discusses the ways businesses may benefit from the internet. This 3 day expo slash conference is probably one of the two most important annual events of this nature - the second being Russian Internet Week, which is scheduled for October. Anyway, back to the topic at hand - The Russian Association for Electronic Communications, RAEC organized RIF+KIB along with leading internet companies of Russia and given that it's hosted on the outskirts of Moscow, specifically, in an hotel out in the country, it's oriented mostly at those willing to take the effort and travel to the event - i.e. industry experts and professionals. Director of RAEC, opening the event, presented a report with some of key figures relating to the Russian segment of the Internet over the past year and outlined some of the tendencies and prospects of the field. So here goes: currently almost 58 million of Russians visit the internet each month - that's around 50% of the Russian population over the age of 18 - the annual growth is, thus, 15% - quite impressive. Most of them, actually, are active internet users. There's 44.3 million people or 38% of adult Russians who log online at least every day - a 22% increase over the past year. That means that not only more Russians are starting to use the Internet, it means that even more make a habit out of it. Throw these numbers around and we see that 76% of those with internet access use it every day. So what kind of impact does the internet have compared to the old media? Well, nation-wide the Internet is used more than any other media, including Television - but only for those younger than 45 - the older generations still prefer to get their information without the use of personal computers. The report also highlighted the much-boasted fact that last fall the number of Russians using the internet has beaten every other European state, meaning that across Europe there's more Russians online than citizens of any other nation. On the global arena Russia is placed 6th in terms of total internet users. Now, allow me to throw my two cents here. I frankly do not understand why Russian telecom public officials feel the need to highlight these figures for almost half a year now. Russia has 143 million people. Germany is the closes of all European nations with 81 million. The results that were published last fall by comScore, the research firm, indicated that Russia had 50.8 million internet users in September versus 50.1 million users in Germany. So with the total population difference of 62 million we beat Germany by 700,000 bloggers. Awesome. While this does put the overly optimistic figures into perspective, it's not all bad. Given the socioeconomic situation it's expected of western states to have more internet users per capita. Add to this the vast expanses and low population density of the Motherland hampering efficient and economical connectivity through broadband internet and the challenges that internet expansion is facing here are clear. Besides, the sole fact that we've reached number one means that we're growing - faster than most countries, and that's what's important. And with my rant over, back to the report that, yes, has addressed this issue of internet penetration. Currently it's estimated to be 49% - much lower than the European average, 78%. Broadband actually constitutes 70% of internet connections - over 2/3. Unfortunately, the report did not clarify what the other 30% consists of, I would like to see stats for mobile internet, you know, GPRS and EDGE protocols, satellite internet and good-old modem or dial-up connections. Actually, 34% of internet users use mobile devices to hop online - 70% and 34% don't quite add up so that probably means these are overlapping audiences and figures don't really say how many people rely on mobile internet as their only means of accessing the world wide web.

The Public Opinion Foundation, the pollster that produced these results, suggests that the metropolises have already reached saturation and the bulk of the growth was facilitated by previously less-developed regions - the latter account for a 16% growth. Ural and Far East Federal Districts had the most new connections - 30% and 26% respectively. According to the report that cites analysts, by 2014 the number of internet users in Russia will reach 80 million people or 71% of the adult population. Now, if we look at the worldwide rankings of countries by internet Users, Russia is 6th, but getting to the top is quite tricky. United States, #2, and Japan, #3 both have around 80% of their population using the internet, meaning they cannot improve their rankings much more. On the other hand, there's India, Brazil, China, Nigeria hanging around the top 10 that have less than 50% internet penetration, so Russia has a lot of competition in this regard. But back to the official stats.

Well, mobile internet has been addressed after all. And, as one might expect, it's one of the fastest growing segments. According to the figures provided by TNS Web Index for January 2012 as well as the Russian ICT company Svyaznoy for 2011, cities with population over 100,000 have over 30% of citizens using mobile internet access at least once a month. Around 20% go online through their mobile devices on a daily basis. Of these active mobile internet users 50% choose the smartphone as their gateway to the cyberspace and about 7%, or 1 in 15, use tablets. My question is - what exactly do other people use? Probably "feature phones" and cellphone network modems, but at this point I'm just guessing - what's impressive is that tablets are becoming increasingly popular. With tablets being available long before Apple iPad, it is fair to say that the rebirth of the tablet was the day when the first generation of iPads hit the stores - that happened around May of 2010. In Russia, it's safe to approximate the advent of iPads and a wave of Android-based tablets capitalizing on its popularity to 2011. From 0 to 7% growth in a year is not that bad, if you ask me. It all boils down to comparative growth rate, and for mobile internet (regardless of the device used), it's twice as fast as those old-fashioned landlines. And I'd like to remind you that 3G and 4G networks are not as omnipresent as they are in the west. With the matter of allocating frequencies for 4G networks finally being settled on the governmental level last year, it is expected that in the next few years new affordable high-speed internet will envelop Russia - one can only imagine the boost this will give to mobile internet usage. But back to stats. The head of TNS Russia Inessa Ishunkina suggests that tablets apparently are treated as somewhat of a toy. Well, no, she didn't say it, she only reported that by March 2012 cities with 100,000 citizens or more had 7% of the demographic bracket 12-17 ages using tablets at least once a month. The same activity in the 18 to 34 bracket yielded only 3%. The 35-44 bracket also had 3% of table internet users. SmartTV is, while not that popular, having positive dynamics, with a total of 3% internet users going online through their TV at least once a month - it's most popular in the 35 to 44 age bracket, though.

So what about changes to the audience of the Internet? Analysts highlighted several tendencies. Currently the younger population is still the most active demographic online with internet usage numbers dropping off with direct relation to age. Thus the "over 55 years of age" bracket has the lowest percentage of internet users. But that's a static image - the dynamics illustrate that older generations are catching up and check out this newfangled internet thingy. According to the report of Anna Duzhnikova, head of the Internet Project Development of the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center, the number of senior citizens online has doubled over the past year with a total of 16% of seniors surfing the web. Other demographics are joining the ranks of webgoers as well - the expert stated that citizens with "elementary or lower level of education" are actively conquering the cyberspace - this demographic has 7% of internet users. Internet is no longer a luxury - it's illustrated by the fact that 9% of those that qualify themselves from financial standpoint as "poor" have joined the internet over the past year.

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