Potential online hot spot

Europe recorded its largest-ever internet audience in September: Five percent year over year growth, reaching 226.7 million unique visitors aged 15 or older.

And Russia is enjoying the lion's share of growth. The country enjoyed a 23 percent increase from last year, reaching 14.6 million visitors, reports comScore.

Only 12 percent of the Russian population is online, suggesting strong growth potential.

Countries that posted similar gains were Spain, whose online population augmented 18 percent to 14.5 million; and Ireland, which grew 16 percent to 1.5 million.

Other findings:

• Germany and the UK have the most internet users ages 15 and up, with 33.2 million and 32.2 million unique visitors, respectively.
• Meanwhile, countries with the highest concentration of users lay to the north: 82 percent of the Netherlands is online; 73 percent of Sweden; 72 percent of Denmark and Norway; and 66 percent of Finland.

Sweden and UK took the award for most web-addicted. Swedes spent an average of 30.1 hours online in September. They also looked at more pages than users in any other country, averaging 3,844 pages per visitor.

Meanwhile, the UK spent the most time online during the month at 33 hours per visitor.