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India to see highest growth in internet market in Asia-Pacific region

Washington, Aug 14: India is expected to see the highest growth  rate in the Internet market in the Asia-Pacific region in the next  five years, according to a report by the international market  research firm Gartner Dataquest.  

From  2001 to 2005, India is expected to enjoy average Internet subscriber growth of 44 per cent a year, the report said. At  that point, India will have 21.3 million subscribers, making it  the fourth largest Internet market in the Asia-Pacific region  behind China, Japan and South Korea.  The report predicted that the Asia-Pacific region, led by China  and Japan and an emerging market in India, will overtake the U.S. as  the world’s  largest Internet market within the next three years. 

Gartner analysts have projected that the Asia-Pacific region  will  have 183.3 million Internet subscribers in 2003 compared  to 162.8 million in the US. Close at heels will be Western Europe with an  estimated 162.2 million subscribers. At the  end of 2000, the Asia-Pacific region had 47.4 million subscribers, representing a 65 per cent increase over the 47.4  million subscribers the previous year. The subscriber growth in  Asia-Pacific is expected to touch 248 million by 2005, Gartner said.  

Japan led the region in subscriber base at the end of 2000 with  24.4 million, followed by South Korea with 16.7 million, China with  14.6 million and Taiwan 4.6 million. Together, these four countries  made up 76 per cent of the region’s Internet subscribers in 2000.  China will overtake South Korea as the second largest market by  the end 2001 but it will take until 2003 to level with Japan.  But despite overtaking the U.S. in Internet subscriber base,  Asia-Pacific will lag behind the former in terms of revenue generated.   By 2005, the Asia-Pacific market will be worth  17.2 billion dollar, lagging behind the 21.2 billion dollar the U.S.  

market will generate.   '' This difference between subscribers and access revenue  illustrates a major reason why Internet use is still growing rapidly  in Asia-Pacific; the region has some of the lowest Internet access  rates in the  world, and prices are still coming down as a result of  competition or in some cases, governmental direction,'' said Andrew  Chetham, senior analyst for Gartner.

 


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