Researchers are predicting that one quarter of the world's population will be connected to the internet within the next four years.

Jupiter Research said that the total number of people online will climb to 1.8 billion by 2012, encompassing roughly 25 per cent of the planet.

The analyst firm sees the highest growth rates in areas such as China, Russia, India and Brazil.

Overall, the number of users online is predicted to grow by 44 per cent between 2007 and 2012.

"Emerging economies will have lower online penetration rates compared to the developed countries," said Jupiter Research director Vikram Sehgal.

"But they will ramp up the learning curve in adopting sophisticated online activities compared to the developing countries."

Asia is seen as an especially critical market owing to the high rate at which its physical population and technological markets are growing.

"Asia will not only have the highest online growth rate compared to other regions in the world, but will present a substantially large pool of sophisticated online users as a market to tap into," said Jupiter president David Schatsky.