Although the Asia Pacific Internet population isn't the fastest growing in the world - Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are growing faster - it is the fastest growing population at 13.6% among large base populations including Europe and North America.
Late last week, China independently claimed that it has surpassed the United States as the largest Internet population in the world with 253 million users (including users below 15 and those accessing the Internet on shared computers, such as Internet cafes). If verified, that represents a 56% increase over the number of Internet users in China last year.
Asia Pacific's impact on Internet usage is clear. Although the top 15 global Internet sites are based in the United States, for all but one, over 50 percent of their audience comes from outside the United States.
Collectively, 80 percent of the audience is located outside the United States; and, 38% of the total audience for the top 15 global Internet sites comes from Asia Pacific.
However, because the top global sites are in English, local language sites in China, Japan, and Korea have emerged as strong competitors to the top global sites. As a result, global sites such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have found that acquiring or developing local sites is a critical factor in the race to dominate their industries locally, according to comScore.
Why local language is so important becomes clear when we consider how Asia Pacific users spend their time on the Internet.
Compared to all other users the world over, Asia Pacific users spend more time on social networks and entertainment sites, while most of the rest the rest of the world spends more time communicating. Asia Pacific users are, however, second only to North America when it comes to using the Internet for work, business, and education, and North American users spend about as much time as Asia Pacific users entertaining themselves.
comScore also found that how Asia Pacific users leverage the Internet varies greatly by market. For instance, Hong Kong and Taiwan users spend significantly more time at work, business, and education than other users in Asia Pacific. Japan, Korea, and Singapore entertain themselves more; India, Malaysia, and especially Korea spend significant time on social networks, while Australia and New Zealand users shop on the Internet more than any other Asia Pacific users.
What about Filipinos? Well, there's the rub. comScore doesn't track Internet users in the Philippines. When I asked Andrew Lipsman, senior manager for Industry Analysis at comScore, why the Philippines wasn't on the company's radar screen, he was kind enough to revert to me right away. Lipsman told me that the Philippines "likely does not have as large of a home/work Internet population" as the other 37 countries included in the survey.
While it is true that many Internet users in the Philippines access the Internet from public sites, mostly Internet cafes and schools and universities, it is unlikely that the majority of the Philippines' 24 million users - according to AC Nielsen - access the Internet from Internet cafes and schools. But even if 60 percent - 14.4 million users - did, that would still leave 9.6 million work and home users. That would be more than four times the number of Internet work and home users in Singapore; more than two and a half times the users in Hong Kong, and 1.3 times the number of users in Malaysia.
Filipino work and home users would be about equal to Taiwan users.
Internet usage by Filipinos is also growing very rapidly, increasing 70 percent from 14 million in 2006, and 80 percent from 7.82 million in 2005. Now, if Internet usage increases just 30% next year, it will increase to 31 million; another 25% in 2010 will provide 39 million Internet users. If just 40% of estimated Filipino users in 2010 access the Internet from work or home, that will provide 15.6 million users. That's about 2.6 million more users than the estimated number of Taiwan users if that country's developed user base grows 12 percent - the same rate it grew this year - for each of the next two years.
Just about any way you look at it, the Philippines has a significant number of serious Internet users, and that base is growing rapidly.
That's the first message of this column. But the second, more important one is that the Philippines must exert more effort making this and other information visible to potential investors. I don't know if Lipsman will include the Philippines in next year's survey, but I am confident there's a better chance than if I'd said nothing.
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