In the consumer ISP market, America Online will continue to dominate, accounting for much of the growth through 2003. The definition of a subscriber varies from service to service. Some services count the number of passwords issued, while others count the number of people with access to the service.
Individuals often subscribe to more than one online service.
Leading the pack was the current awareness news and research segment with 1,299,814 net new subscribers to reach close to 4.5 million subscribers in 1998. Most of the gain resulted from new subscribers attracted to lower-priced current awareness news services. The consumer ISP market segment posted the highest overall net subscriber gain, adding nearly 6.4 million subscribers to reach 26.3 million subscribers in 1998. America Online accounted for most of the growth, adding more than 4.8 million subscribers during 1998. Simba Information is a unit of Primedia Information.