Hispanic online presence grows, but not as fast as overall population
Internet users of Hispanic background make up 10% of Internet users today—18.8 million users—and will account for 11.6% in 2011—24.4 million, says a new report from researchers eMarketer Inc. However, in relation to their overall presence in the U.S. population, Hispanics are under-represented on the Internet. Hispanics were 14.4% of the U.S. population in 2005 and will be 15.5% in 2010, eMarketer projects, based on U.S. Census Bureau data.
While they all have Spanish language in common, Hispanics are subdivided into many cultural and national groups, which makes targeting the Hispanic population difficult, eMarketer says.
“A defining characteristic of this segment is the variety of its nationalities, languages, degrees of acculturation, income and education levels,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report “Hispanic Americans Online: A Fragmented Population.” “These factors yield a patchwork of Internet usage patterns. The nearly 19 million Hispanic American Internet users do not constitute a homogeneous market.”
People of Hispanic origin come from nearly two dozen countries, though nearly two-thirds of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican origin, eMarketer reports. “As important as it is, the choice between communicating in Spanish or English is just one piece of the puzzle,” Williamson says.
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