Ipsos Reid today released the findings of its latest Canadian Internet usage report. The 2007 Ipsos Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report is the latest installment of the trusted quarterly resource. Among the findings:

85 per cent of Canadians have Internet access from any location with 78 per cent accessing the Internet from home. Of those with access at home, 85 per cent have high speed access, an 11 per cent increase over the figures from 2006. Weekly Internet usage among Canadians fell 0.8 hours per week to 14.3, down from the all time high in 2006 of 15.1 hours per week.

When online, the primary connected activity Canadians identify is email with 97 per cent of Canadians saying they regularly use email. The most popular online activities remain search engines (84 per cent), newspaper and news / information portals (75 per cent) and online banking (70 per cent). According to the report, 67 per cent of Canadians have purchased products or services directly online and 59 per cent comparison shop online.

Shopping online showed a slight increase over 2006 results with 61 per cent of Canadians shopping online in 2007 compared with 56 per cent the previous year. Shoppers spent on average $316 in 2007 and key purchase areas for 2007 included books (38 per cent), clothing (31 per cent) and movies (21 per cent). Electronic purchases included toys / video games (22 per cent), TVs / phones / digital audio players (19 per cent), computer hardware (6 per cent) and software (4 per cent).

Predictably, social networking showed a massive spike with 37 per cent of Canadians reported visiting a social network of community site and 29 per cent taking it a step further to create a profile. Younger Canadians (again, predictably) twice as likely to have visited or placed a profile on a social networking site with 63 per cent of 18 - 34 year-olds reporting as compared with 29 per cent for 35 - 54 year old users.

The Ipsos Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report is the most comprehensive and authoritative source of Canadian online usage facts and figures following quarterly Internet trends north of the 49th. Market Research Canada interviews 2,500 Web users per quarter to pull together the results. Full results to the subscription based survey results can be acquired by visiting www.ipsos.ca/reid/interactive/