Half of UK businesses online at the end of 2001

According to the Office of National Statistics, 50 percent of UK businesses were online at the end of December 2001.

The number of businesses online with more than ten employees rose by 15.9 percent from 2000 to 2001, to reach 73 percent.

A recent ecommerce study released by the Office of National Statistics indicates that 46 percent of the smallest sized businesses in the UK were online, compared to 98 percent of organizations with 1,000 employees or more.

Around 17 percent of those companies that were not online at the end of last year planned to go online during 2002.

Nearly 40 percent of UK businesses had their own website, and this figure rose to 62 percent for organizations that employed ten or more people.

Among companies with websites, seven percent were selling online, while 25 percent were purchasing online.

Just under 50 percent of UK businesses were using email by the end of 2001, while 10 percent had their own Intranets.

The report also indicates that just 12 percent of UK businesses had permanent Internet connections at the end of 2001. /


The primary connection type for online businesses was dial-up connections with 67 percent of businesses accessing the Internet this way.

Nineteen percent of online businesses had an ISDN line, while xDSL or other fixed connections accounted for six percent of business connections.

Around 37 percent of companies who didnít use broadband said that they hadnít previously considered the idea, while 18 percent believed that broadband service was too expensive.

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