GoUK.com's Market - English Statistics

• English has a special/official status in more than 75 countries, totalling in excess of two billion people
• More than 25 percent of the world's population speaks English - with varying degrees of competence
• Nearly 50 percent of EU citizens can speak English
• English is spoken as a:
  • first language by around 375 million people
  • second language by around another 375 million people
  • foreign language by around 750 million people
• More than 66 percent of the world's scientists read in English
• More than 75 percent of the world's correspondence is written in English
• More than 80 percent of all the world's electronic information is stored in English
• More than 80 percent of Internet users communicate in English
• At any one moment there are 120,000 people studying English at British Council centres alone
• This year over one billion people will learn English
• More than 600,000 overseas students come to the UK each year to learn English
• In total, those 600,000 students spend in excess of (GBP) £1 billion a year in the UK
• The UK's English language products are worth over (GBP) £900 million a year to the UK
• English is the main language of 
  • academic conferences and research
  • advertising and marketing
  • airports and air-traffic control
  • books
  • diplomacy
  • international business
  • international competitions
  • Internet and email
  • newspapers
  • pop music 
  • science
  • sport
  • technology
• GoUK.com is read by tens of thousands of people worldwide every month
• GoUK.com Newsletter is read by thousands of people worldwide every month
• For more information about GoUK.com, click here