Russia's online audience is growing the fastest

If you're thinking of targeting a foreign audience, you may want to check on the Russians. According to the latest ComScore research, Russia has the fastest growing online audience in Europe. Of the more than 240 million European consumers online about 17.4 million are Russian; that is an increase of 27% year over year (YoY).

by Kristina Knight

The overall growth rate was 8%. France ranked second for growth with 31.4 million users (21% growth rate) and Spain ranked second with 16 million users (15% growth). Rounding out the top five were Ireland (1.6 million users; 15% growth) and Switzerland (4.1 million users; 12% growth).

By country, the Internet penetration levels are also increasing at astounding rates, making online advertising efforts of even more importance to marketers. Of the top three countries (Denmark, Sweden and Norway), all had 75% or better penetration rates.

These numbers make European countries a prime target for marketers because of the sheer numbers of people going online for information, communication and shopping/entertainment reasons. Consumers are also spending more total time online. In the Netherlands, for example, the average consumer spends about 23 hours per month online and views more than 2800 web pages.