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30.07.2012

DEVELOPMENTS OF ARMENIA’S SEGMENTS OF THE INTERNET

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Samvel Martirosyan
Expert, Center for Information Studies, “Noravank” Foundation



Over the last years the Armenian segment of the world web shot up dramatically. An unprecedented increase in numbers of users brought to the situation when Armenia took leading positions among the CIS countries1.

Growth of Armenia’s segment of Internet in 2011-2012

The increase in numbers of the users is conditioned by several factors:

  • Drop of a wholesale price for the Internet, which brought to a slump of retail prices2
  • Provision of internet communication in the provinces by the mobile operators
  • Drop of computer prices and availability of credit sales
  • Increase of a number of smart phones in the country (it should be taken into consideration that a great number of users visit social networks mainly from their phones)
  • Using of Internet has become a routine.

As a result the number of the Armenian web sites in increasing. The number of the web-sites registered in Circle.am system (where most of the web-sites with the Armenian content or belonging to the Armenian segment of the Internet are registered) at the end of September 2011 was 2214. In June-September 426 new web-sites were registered in the system. As compared with late September 2012 the number of the web-sites registered at Circle.am increased by 48%3. And according to the numbers of May 2012 the number of the web-sites was 2,567.

The demographic picture of the visitors of the web-sites registered at Circle.am is also changing. Thus, 57.51% of the visitors in September 2011 were from the territory of Armenia and in May 2012 this index increased up to 60% and tendency of growth can still be observed4.

Over the last several years the number of the users of mobile devices (phones and tablets) has been increasing. Thus, according to StatCounter Company, for April 2012 1.5% of all the visits from Armenia were from mobile devices and in 2011 this indicator was 0.8%. (It should be mentioned that this indicator refers to the entire web, but in case with the social networks and mass media it shoots up dramatically). The picture of the mobile devices used comes to prove that Symbian operating system prevails in Armenia, but there is also a tendency of reduction of usage of this system and growth of usage of others (see Pic. 1).

Defacement the Armenian web-sites

The Armenian Internet segment periodically suffers from mass hacker attacks most of which are politically charged. Most of the attacks are carried out by the Azerbaijani hacker groups. Turkish groups are at the second place. From time to time attacks from other countries are also registered but they are not politically charged. Most of the web-sites which suffered from hacker attacks in 2011 and first five months of 2012 were placed at the Armenia web-hosting. Several mass hacker attacks were registered. The most large-scale was in January 2011 as well as in September and November of the same years (see Pic. 2). In February and March 2012 two large-scale attacks by Azerbaijani hackers were registered after which the number of the attacks has shrunk (see Pic. 3).

Conclusions

Over the last several years, which followed liberalization of the communication sphere, an upsurge of Internet was observed in Armenia. On the one hand the number of the Internet users surpassed half of the population. On the other hand the increase of the number of users and drop of the price for Internet caused a shoot up of the segment of the Internet from Armenia. Thus the number of domain names registered in .am domain exceeded 20 thousand5 (by contrast this number in Azerbaijan is about 14 thousand6). Besides quantitative growth the changes in quality are also observed: in Armenia, just like in the rest of the world, the mobile Internet turns into one of the factors which condition the further growth of the sphere.

Picture 1

Picture 2
DEFACEMENT STATISTICS OF THE ARMENIAN SEGMENT OF INTERNET FOR 2012 BY CYBERGATES

Picture 3
DEFACEMENT STATISTICS OF THE ARMENIAN SEGMENT FOR JANUARY-MARCH 2012 BY CYBERGATES Last update: 30.05.2012

1 http://noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=6492

2 http://noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=6269

3 Internet in Armenia, June-September 2011 http://www.b24.am/report/internet_in_armenia_june-september_2011.html

4 Figures according to Circle.am

5 https://www.amnic.net/

6 http://vesti.az/news

“Globus” analytical journal, #8, 2012

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