The US Hispanic online population reached a record 20.3 million visitors in February 2009, experiencing 6% growth over the same period in 2008, according to a report on the US Hispanic internet market from comScore, which said the Hispanic online demographic is expanding more than 50% faster than the overall US online population.
During the month, Hispanic internet users exhibited a surge in online engagement, including strong increases in time spent and pages consumed. The total amount of time spent online by Hispanics increased 6.9% in 2009 (3.9 times faster than the total US online population), while total pages consumed grew 6% (3.6 times faster than the total U.S. population).
Hispanics now make up 11% of the total online population, according to comScore. This record number of Hispanic users is consistent with the accelerating growth of Hispanic online adoption. During the past year, the growth of America's Hispanic internet audience has outpaced that of the total US online population in terms of number of visitors, time spent and pages consumed, comScore said.
Hispanics Heavy Entertainment Consumers
The study also found that while Hispanics represent only 11% of the total US online audience and account for 9% of total time spent online, they are heavier-than-average users of entertainment and communications online.
In order to understand more about how and where Hispanics are most likely to consume content online, the study looked at the site categories where they spent an above average share of their online time:
The top ranked category was Community - Teens, where US Hispanics accounted for 18% of total time spent, followed by Gaming Information at 13%. Other entertainment- and leisure-related categories were heavily represented on the list, including Radio (13%), Multimedia (12%), Discussion/Chat, Instant Messengers (11%) and Music (11%).
Recent research from Alloy Access showed that Hispanic consumers in the US also have a high rate of Hispanic newspaper readership.
