PETALING JAYA, MALAYSIA: Malaysians rank fifth among 52 countries for being hooked to digital media for entertainment.

The survey by research firm The Nielsen Company showed Malaysians ranked third globally in terms of those who spent more than 20 hours a week watching streamed or downloaded content from the Internet.

It found that 53% of Malaysians played movies, videos, audio or game contents online in the past month, while 41% downloaded the same content from the Internet.

The findings are part of the biannual Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, which reached 26,000 online users including 500 Malaysians.

?For Malaysia, broadband penetration is only at 18%, but with the Government?s push to High Speed Broadband via fibre optics by 2010, we can expect the country to continue its climb up the media consumption ladder,? said Nielsen Malaysia Consumer Group managing director Paul Richmond.

The survey also found that respondents from emerging nations were heavier media users compared to those from developed countries.

The firm said because of low Internet penetration in emerging nations, respondents of the online survey skewed towards heavy users, while the sample in developed nations represented more of the general population.

It also attributed the results to emerging nations having an online population younger by an average of 10 years compared with developed nations.

It added that countries with piracy problems tend to perform better in the survey, which did not distinguish between users of legal or illegally obtained media. --THE STAR