Knowing The Internet Usage Of Café Customers

This blog post refers to the Yahoo-Nielsen Internet Habits Study for the Philippines which I had already touched in a previous article on this site. This time I will try to present a more thorough analysis of the results of the survey conducted from October to November 2008 with 1,200 participants from different parts of the country. I aim to present a clearer picture of the Internet usage in the country as well as try to come out with the profile of the current customers of Internet cafés.

Let me start by saying that a total of twenty-eight (28%) percent of the estimated 35 million Filipinos in urban centers nationwide or 9.8 million Filipinos  are regular Internet users with five (5%) percent of them or 490,000 saying they access the Internet everyday. Thirty-four (34%) of the Internet users in the country belonging mostly to socio-economic class A, B and C have their own computers but only twenty-seven (27%) percent or 2.646 million have Internet access in their homes.

The survey showed that lack of a PC or Internet access at home is no longer a hurdle for most Filipinos to access the Internet. The survey revealed that Internet cafes have become an important access point for Filipino Internet users. Internet cafes have become the great equalizer for all social classes in accessing the Internet. Forty-seven (47%) percent of all Internet time by Filipino Internet users are spent in Internet cafes.

The survey further showed that seventy-one (71%) percent of Filipino Internet users or 6.958 million accessed the Internet through Internet cafes in the three months before the study. The age brackets and the percentages of their access to Internet are as follows:

• 10-19 years old . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 percent
• 20-29 years old . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 percent
• 30-39 years old . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 percent
• 40-49 years old . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 percent
• 50+ years old . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 percent

Lastly, the survey also revealed what the Filipino Internet users do when they go online which are as follows in terms of how many percent among them do a certain online activity:

• Use e-mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 percent
• Use instant messaging . . . . . . . . . . . 63 percent
• Do research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 percent
• Play games online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 percent
• Visit social networking site . . . . . . . . .51 percent
• Read blogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 percent
• Download/upload photos . . . . . . . . . . 33 percent
• Work on personal blog . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 percent
• Listen to Internet radio . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 percent
• Download/upload music files . . . . . . 25 percent
• Read news online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 percent
• Send Internet SMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   23 percent
• Do online banking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3 percent
• Purchase products online . . . . . . . . . . . 3 percent

What do the above figures mean to you if you are an Internet café owner? Will you still anchor your business on online gaming? By the way, the Yahoo-Nielsen survey revealed that the younger generation have become early adopters of the Internet with at least 49 percent of Internet users in the Philippines aged 10-19 while 32 percent are of ages 20-29. Also, Internet usage is growing past at 8 to 10% in the previous years.