According to Internet World Statistics, French ranks as the fifth most-spoken language by Internet surfers. There are just over 74 million French-speakers online and the number of French-speaking Internet users grew more than 500% between 2000 and 2008. It trails behind Japanese by 20 million, as well as third-ranked Spanish, second-ranked Chinese, and English.

Since French is spoken in so many countries around the world, it’s hard to just pinpoint one country’s usage and penetration numbers. France, for example, has 36,153,327 Internet users according to Nielsen Net/Ratings – giving it a high penetration rate of 60 percent of its population.

For a look at the most common languages spoken online, visit World Internet Statistics. Or, for more information on country-by-country Internet population penetration percentages and online spend, visit Nielsen Online.

SOURCES:

World Internet Statistics

Nielsen Online