Is the Internet Becoming Rich Media?

• Posted: Thursday, November 08, 2007
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Internet Users, Market Survey

All that glitters is now online.

At one time it was commonly held that no one could sell high-priced items online. That time has come…and gone. Affluent users are not only online, as a percentage of the total Internet population they are growing.

In fact, eMarketer projects that the number of affluent users in the US will increase from 43.7 million in 2006 to 57.1 million in 2011.

“What makes this surge of the rich online particularly impressive,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report Affluent Internet Users: How the Rich Live Online, “is that the percentage of affluent US households, defined as households with incomes of $100,000 or more, has remained comparatively steady over the past seven years.”

Researchers increasingly recognize this demographic as the “mass affluent” segment of society. As the term implies, the group is both a mass movement and an exclusive segment in the upper percentiles of US income earners.

“To reach them, discount marketers are reaching upward by offering upscale products and brands,” Mr. Verna said. “At the same time, luxury goods marketers that have traditionally catered to the highly affluent—the so-called ‘super rich’—are also targeting them with lower-priced versions of high-end items.”

The growth of the online affluent segment is spurred by the fact that the affluent are typically early adopters of new technology, and they are conversation catalysts.

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