U.S. Hispanic Internet Audience Growth Outpaces Total U.S. Online Population By 50%.

comScore, Inc. released a report on the U.S. Hispanic Internet market, finding that the Hispanic online population reached a record 20.3 million visitors in February 2009, representing 11 percent of the total U.S. online market, an increase of 6 percent from the previous year.

Hispanic Internet users also exhibited a surge in online engagement, including strong increases in time spent and pages consumed. The total amount of time spent online by Hispanics increased 6.9 percent in 2009 (3.9 times faster than the total U.S. online population), while total pages consumed grew 6 percent (3.6 times faster than the total U.S. population).

To understand where Hispanics are most likely to consume content online, the study looked at the site categories where they spent an above average share of their online time. The top ranked category was Community - Teens, where U.S. Hispanics accounted for 18 percent of total time spent in the category, followed by Gaming Information at 13 percent. Other entertainment- and leisure-related categories were heavily represented on the list, including Radio (13 percent), Multimedia (12 percent), Discussion/Chat, Instant Messengers (11 percent) and Music (11 percent).

When They Go Online Hispanics Download

More US Hispanics are going online than ever before, and most are using broadband.
According to Scarborough Research, 54% of Hispanics were online in 2008. While that is up slightly over the previous year, it still trails the 69% penetration rate of total US users.
The adoption of broadband by Hispanic consumers, however, was nearly identical to that of the country overall.
And what did Hispanics download on their high-speed connections? Music, video, audio and movies, in that order, were the most popular types of content.
Most amazingly, even though they are slightly less likely to have broadband than the average US adult Internet user, online Hispanics were 211% more likely to download digital content.
Hispanic Internet users were most likely to subscribe to broadband if they resided in major population hubs such as Miami, New York and Los Angeles. Five cities in Texas were also represented as broadband centers.
57% of Hispanic adult Internet users were between the ages of 18 and 34. One-half had household incomes over $50,000 per year, 77% were employed either full- or part-time and 55% were homeowners.

Internet Among Hispanic Adults Has Reached A Critical Mass

According to a new study conducted by Scarborough Research, Hispanic Internet users are avid downloaders of Digital Content & aggressively adopting Broadband.
Scarborough's analysis finds that Hispanic Internet Users are 21% more likely to download digital content than the average adult online. Forty-two percent of Hispanic Internet Users have downloaded some form of digital content during the past 30 days, compared to 35% of the total Internet population. Music is the top download category for both Hispanics and the total Internet population. Almost one-third (32%) of Hispanic Internet Users and almost one-quarter (24%) of all Internet users have downloaded music during the past month.
Interestingly, Phoenix is the leading local market for Hispanics who download digital content. Sixty percent of Phoenix's Hispanic Internet Users downloaded digital content during the past month. El Paso, Miami and Dallas are the markets where Hispanic Internet Users are least likely to download digital content.

Another Evidence That Hispanics Do Go Online

Question: Which network is the most-pirated U.S. broadcast network on YouTube?
Answer: ABC?
WRONG
Correct Anwser: Univision
The Spanish-language TV network is the most-pirated U.S. broadcast network on YouTube, with mostly clips of blockbuster telenovelas drawing more than twice as many views as Univision's nearest network competitor, Fox.

Webbased marketing has long been overlooked when it comes to reaching Latinos. No more.

If a brand wanted to reach out to the increasingly important Latino consumer, there were always a variety of traditional tools to grab -- traditional being the key term. Historically, little importance had been placed on Web-based marketing. But those days are over.
TNS Media Intelligence reports that during the first 10 months of 2008, Hispanic online display advertising pulled in almost $212 million, up from about $165 million for full-year 2007. That $212 million represents slightly more than 4 percent of all Hispanic media ad spend during the same January to October 2008 period.
Why now? Hispanic online space has been gathering momentum for some time, but "it's been topical in 2008," says Bruce Eatroff, a partner in Halyard Capital, a private equity fund whose holdings include the Hispanic news and information company ImpreMedia.
Far more immediate forces may be at work, too -- specifically, the recession. The budgetary constrictions caused by the economic climate have apparently compelled many brands to look at online marketing strategies because of their cost effectiveness.
There's still another -- and far more basic -- reason why brands are taking a closer look at Latinos online these days: There are simply more of them online.Overall, 48 percent of all Hispanics in the U.S. have broadband online connections. Sure, that's nine percentage points less than the population as a whole (57 percent), according to a January 2008 survey conducted by Horowitz Associates for its "State of Broadband Urban Markets 2008" research report. But the survey's data also show that 68 percent of Hispanics with a preference for the English language (predominantly younger ones, who are a key demo target to start with) have broadband access.
Increasingly, streaming media is another direct plug-in to more of the Latino population. On Yahoo! Telemundo video streams were up 67 percent in October 2008 versus the same month in 2007. Unique users were up 103 percent during the same period.
Still, brands that shift attention to Hispanic-geared online efforts face a number of hurdles.
(This article is quoted from AdAge, January 12, 2009, Janet Stilson)