Forrester: 2.2 billion people online globally by 2013 (43% in Asia)

Forrester Research on Tuesday projected that the Internet population will hit 2.2 billion people by 2013. Of that tally, 43 percent of the Internet population will be in Asia.

In a report, Forrester paints a picture of Internet growth in emerging markets and stagnation in the developing world.

Among the key findings:

• 17 percent of the online population will reside in China.
• Growth rates in the U.S., Western Europe and other industrialized nations will be between 1 percent and 3 percent.
• Online penetration in the U.S. will rise to 82 percent in 2013, up from 73 percent today. That rate will put it on par with other Internet saturated countries.
• Russia and Turkey growth will grow 8 percent a year.
• Africa and the Middle East will show strong growth to hit 13 percent of the online population in 2013.

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