Poll reveals impact of free net accounts

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Just over a fifth of New Zealand web users maintain more than one internet account, according to a survey by Melbourne research company Red Sheriff.

Unsurprisingly, free services featured strongly among the 21 per cent of users who maintained second accounts, with Clear-owned zfree being the most popular choice, followed by i4free and freenet.

Since its launch four months ago, zfree has signed up 150,000 clients and claims 33,000 use the service daily.

New Zealand business development manager Jonathan Dodd agreed that the finding supported denials by many paid-for providers that free internet services had taken away their customers.

The survey, based on a sample of 500 people in the five largest cities, split equally between users and non-users, highlighted several different patterns of internet use from Australia, said Mr Dodd.

"In Australia there is a much wider choice of providers, but here the market seems to be dominated by Xtra and ihug."

According to the survey, Xtra was the most popular provider, named by 36 per cent of respondents, followed by ihug (18 per cent), with a tie for third between zfree, Paradise.net and ClearNet, each scoring 6 to 7 per cent.

Sixty-three per cent of people of all ages have used the internet, compared with 50 per cent in Australia.

Among younger age-groups, internet penetration in New Zealand is even higher, with 81 per cent of 16 to 29-year-olds having been online.

E-mail was the most popular use of the net (98 per cent of respondents), while searching for product information (69 per cent) and news and weather updates (68 per cent) were also popular.

The research also indicates that 27 per cent of local internet users have shopped online - a number predicted by Red Sheriff to double over the next year.

Nearly a quarter of those surveyed had used online banking services, but only 2 per cent admitted to having paid for adult services.

Mr Dodd said businesses should note the high numbers using the internet to get product information.

"Even people who don't see many sales coming through their websites directly should realise their importance as a means of communicating with customers. They are like virtual salespeople."

Red Sheriff, formed in 1996, claims leadership of the Australian internet research market.