Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Here’s some stats I’ve recently pulled together on Internet activity, mobile and broadband usage from RTE, Silicon Republic, Sunday Tribune and ENN.

Bebo is Ireland’s most popular social networking site with over one million Irish users to date. The website has a broad base with users varying from 13 - 35 years of age. 1 in 3 Bebo users are between the ages of 13 to 17 and users are typically based in urban areas due to broadband rollout in the country. These areas are Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

Nearly three quarters of Irish internet users (73%) never read blogs on the internet, with 22% regularly reading them

14% of Irish internet users have their own online journal or weblog, with 15-24 year olds the most frequent users of the internet as a ‘creative community medium’.

70% of Irish internet users never download ‘podcasts’, although 25% claim to regularly download them.

Ebay.ie has over 500,000 registered users in Ireland (that’s 1/8 of the population)

The growing popularity of video and music downloads, online tax returns, YouTube and other social networking sites and online gaming has caused demand for internet bandwidth in Ireland to rise 800% on Eircom’s network since April 2005, according to Eircom chief technology officer Geoff Shakespeare.

The number of broadband subscribers in Ireland increased from 176,300 in the second quarter of 2005 to 372,200 in the second quarter of 2006. Ireland ended 2006 with 430,000 broadband subscribers. Communications Minister Noel Dempsey TD has set a target to have 700,000 broadband subscribers in the country by the end of 2007.

An estimated 935,600 people used a computer every day or almost every day while an estimated 638,500 used the internet at least once a day.

The most popular activities for Irish people on the internet were primarily information search and services followed by communication by email and thirdly interaction with public authorities.

The most common internet purchases were travel and holiday accommodation, followed by tickets for events and thirdly books, newspapers and learning material.

99pc of Ryanair’s 35 million European passengers book tickets via the web; and last year 86,000 people in Ireland filed €2.2bn worth of income tax through the Revenue Online Service.

In terms of mobile usage, in 2005 Irish mobile users sent 4.4 billion text messages, equating to 1,053 per person.

The number of voice messages transmitted in 2006 was 5.7 billion.

In the second quarter of 2005 there were 4.4 million mobile subscribers in the Republic of Ireland, giving a mobile penetration rate of 103pc.

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