2008 Asian - Internet Market

This market report provides a comprehensive overview of the Internet segment of the market across the various economies of Asia. The overview includes Internet statistics on each country.

While there is considerable activity in the Internet and online markets across the region, the market in Asia continues to be dominated by the big players of North Asia, (South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, etc), with a significant role also being played by some of the South East Asian countries (Singapore, Malaysia, etc). Of course, in terms of sheer Internet user numbers, China (200 million) and India (210 million) maintain a real presence, despite their modest user penetration figures.

In fact as highlighted in the table below, the Asian Internet market can be broken into three user penetration groups. The top group includes the more highly penetrated markets in terms of users and subscribers. They also tend to have sophisticated and extensive broadband access facilities in place. Typically we find that countries from this group are among the global leaders in broadband Internet. South Korea, with a user penetration of over 71%, leads the regional market with a broadband subscriber penetration of 30%. Closely following in second place is Hong Kong with 70% user penetration and 27% broadband subscriber penetration. The countries in this top grouping are characterised by their state of the art national infrastructure and, most importantly, strong regulatory support for expansion of telecom and IT services.

The countries in second band – roughly between 10% and 20% user penetration – are to be found in expansion mode when it comes to their Internet markets. But there is a clear gap (20%) to be bridged before they can be counted in the top grouping. With Thailand (21% user penetration) and Vietnam (20%) playing lead roles in this middle group, we typically find that in the last few years both operators and governments have started to give priority to expanding Internet access and speed in these countries. Of course, as noted already we find China and India in this grouping as the two giants struggle to provide Internet access for their respectively huge populations.

In the third grouping – those markets with a user penetration of less than 10% – we tend to find those countries that, for whatever reason, have not yet ‘got their act together’ when it comes to Internet. Of course, some are performing relatively well under difficult circumstances. Indonesia, for example, has major infrastructure challenges to overcome in providing Internet to its citizens; yet its 9% penetration does in fact represent a very significant 25 million users. And the war-ravaged Afghanistan is managing 2% user penetration under extremely difficult circumstances. Then there is the tiny fledgling nation of Timor Leste (East Timor), which has continued to struggle with political instability as it attempts to build its national infrastructure. At the bottom end of the Internet scale in Asia, however, we find a number of countries that are simply struggling with poor telecom infrastructure and generally underdeveloped regulatory regimes. Included among these are Laos, Nepal, Turkmenistan, Cambodia, Tajikistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Internet penetration, users and broadband subscriber penetration in Asian countries – 2007

(Source: BuddeComm based on industry data)

Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.