LATEST NPD SURVEY FINDS WEB ACCESS FROM HOMES GREW FOURFOLD IN SECOND HALF, 1995

SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO, March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Some 6.4 million U.S. households have members who claim they used the World Wide Web at home, according to a January 1996 survey -- four times as many as made that claim, six months ago.

The new data, announced today by the NPD Group, Inc., indicates consumer interest in the World Wide Web, on-line services and network communications is exploding. Membership in on-line services is up 68 percent over last January, to 7.5 million households, and membership with leading provider America Online (AOL) is up 133 percent to 4.3 million. More than half of home PCs now have modems, enabling network communications, as compared to 44.4 percent a year ago.

These are among the findings in the latest quarterly National Survey of Hardware Ownership presented today at the Software Publishers Association Conference by the NPD Group, Inc. The results are based upon responses to a January survey from a representative sample of 44,800 PC- and non-PC-owning households. Returned surveys are weighted and projected to represent all households in the United States.

Windows 95 Drives Home PC Sales

According to the survey results, home PC penetration grew 35.5 percent from 32.8 percent a year ago. The big winner among consumers was Microsoft Windows 95, which was officially introduced last August and now runs on computers in 5.4 million homes, accounting for about 26 percent of Windows home PCs in the in the continental United States. Windows-based PCs (including Windows 95 machines) now account for 59.1 percent of household PCs, up from 42.6 percent a year ago.

Following the Christmas buying season, January figures for ownership of non-Windows PCs were down from comparable figures collected in October 1995. Macintosh and Apple ownership was off slightly (down 2.3 percent), from 4.9 million to 4.8 million households. IBM compatibles not running Windows were down 4.6 percent from 7.2 to 6.9 million. And other makes were down 3.4 percent, from 2.6 to 2.5 million.

Surge of Consumers On-Line

Since last October, the World Wide Web has proven to be the most popular destination of the modem-equipped home PC user. Over 6 million households used the Web within 30 days prior to the survey, about one- and-a-half times the membership of AOL, the leading on-line service. As recently as last July, AOL and the Web had about the same number of home users, according to the NPD survey.

Other on-line services have been less successful in building membership. During the past year, AOL's major competitors, Prodigy and CompuServe, have held steady at about 1.5 million households each. The new Microsoft Network doubled in size from October to January, with its membership reaching just under 400,000 households at the beginning of the new year.

About the Survey

The National Survey of Hardware Ownership is a quarterly syndicated report from the NPD Group covering ownership of PCs and peripherals, subscriptions to on-line services and Internet usage patterns. The survey is intended to aid marketers by tracking consumer trends and the success rates of products and services.

About NPD

The NPD Group, Inc. is a privately held, international market research company based in Port Washington, N.Y. Founded in 1953, the firm specializes in providing custom and syndicated market research -- and associated computer software-based information management systems -- for understanding and analyzing consumer behavior, and predicting and tracking product success. NPD is the seventh largest market research firm in the U.S. based upon 1995 revenues, according to the American Marketing Association's Honomichl 50.

Customers interested in NPD services can reach the firm at 516-625-0700. In addition, information on NPD is available at the company's site on the World Wide Web: http://www.npd.com/.

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/CONTACT: Leslie Singer of The NPD Group, Inc., 516-625-2302, e-mail: leslie-singer.npd.com; or Kimberly Fox of UpStart Communications, 716-244-5520, e-mail: kfox@upstart.com/

CO: The NPD Group, Inc. ST: New York IN: CPR SU:

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