Over 50% Internet users to be Asians soon?
10 Apr 2007 (Tue)AS OF 10 MARCH 2007, although Asian Internet penetration is only 10.7% of total Asian population (compared to 25% for the rest of the world), Asian Internet users already comprises 35.8% of world internet population, according to Internet World Stats (based on data compiled from World Gazetteer, Nielsen/NetRatings, ITU, and other local sources). Extrapolating this with the Asian growth rate of 248.8% over a 7-year period: Would over 50% of world internet population be Asian soon (say, in one or two years’ time)?
| World Internet Usage & Population Statistics | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Population (Estimated) |
Population % of the World
|
Internet Users |
% Population (Penetration)
|
Usage % of the World
|
Usage Growth 2000-2007
|
|
|
Asia
|
3,712,527,624
|
56.5%
|
398,709,065
|
10.7%
|
35.8 %
|
248.8 %
|
|
Rest of the world
|
2,862,138,793
|
43.5%
|
715,565,361
|
25.0%
|
64.2 %
|
190.1 %
|
|
World Total
|
6,574,666,417
|
100.0%
|
1,114,274,426
|
16.9%
|
100.0 %
|
208.7 %
|
ACCORDING TO THE READ/WRITE WEB (RWW), also quoting World Internet Stats in World Internet Penetration Now 16% – Asia Growing Fast!:
- China, Japan, India, Korea (South), Indonesia and Taiwan are among the top 20 countries with highest number of users.
- English and Chinese are the top two languages of all Internet users, comprising almost 44 percent.
Extrapolating the second piece of information with the Chinese language growth rate of 346.7 % over a 5-year period: Would over 30% of world internet users be reading and/or writing in Chinese soon (say, in one or two years’ time)?
What would these extrapolations mean for you and me?
Note: RWW’s observations were made in September 2006, but they still hold true with the latest data compiled at the same site. The extrapolations here are based on intuitive projections, and not Mathematical calculations.
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Posted by J.K. in Asia, Technology, Web Traffic | 5 Comments |
April 16th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Very interesting article and something I’ve been giving some thought to lately. There is a huge world outside of English language blogging that bloggers are missing. For example, the April 2007 State of the Blogosphere report from Technorati indicates that Japanese accounted for the largest number of blog posts in Q4 2006. Of course, one of the challenges in penetrating those potential markets is the language itself. While translation software and sites help, they generally do a poor job of dealing with many of the nuances of language.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Good points, Rob. Maybe it’s time for the English-speaking world to start learning Japanese, Chinese, etc. As you’ve noted, there are many nuances within a language, even stories behind various words, phrases, proverbs, sayings, etc. The best way to really understand another person and his perspective is perhaps to understand and even speak his language — even if it’s only a few words here and there.
April 24th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
MORE STATS ON ASIAN BLOGGERS, this time compiled from several sources by London journalist Ian Delaney on TwoPointTouch:
Exceptions:
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
now since isp in indonesia cut down their rate more than 50% of the previous rate, internet user in indonesia keep growing fast
March 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
So the stats are coming up for Asians to dominate the Internet world. It’s just simply means that more and more people are staying connected all around the world through the internet. Thanks for this article.