All margins of error are calculated at the 95% confidence level.
A note on representation — weighting schema
Reported worldwide and regional figures are based on a weighting scheme that accounts for both Internet penetration and population density. The total number of Internet users per country has been reflected as a percentage of the study's total online universe (composed of all the surveyed countries). The weights ascribed based on this figure are not straight Internet penetration; for example, while the U.S. and the U.K. share broadly similar levels of Internet penetration, this weighting scheme assigns a heavier weight to the U.S. than to the U.K. in the reported figures, due to the larger population size in the U.S.
The reported worldwide figures incorporate all markets covered to date. The mature market figures are based on the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The weightings employed for the mature market figures have been amended to include only this set of countries. The emerging market figures are based on data collected from South Korea, China, Russia, India, and Taiwan, with weights adjusted accordingly.
The weighting scheme will be reviewed for each wave, the respective weight of each country determined by the total Internet user figure quoted on the Internet World Stats website. Worldwide and regional figures are representative to the extent that the data is representative of each of the countries surveyed. That data is representative according to the reported sample sizes and corresponding margins of errors in each country as described above.
